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PUBLICATIONS OF THE
ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION

II. ROOSEVELT IN THE KANSAS CITY STAR

COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATIONS
ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION INC.

R. J. CUDDIHY

ARTHUR W. PAGE

MARK SULLIVAN

E. A. VAN VALKENBURG

ROOSEVELT

IN THE KANSAS CITY STAR

WAR-TIME EDITORIALS

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

RALPH STOUT

Managing Editor of The Star

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

(Cfce fiinersiDc prestf Cambrib0e

1921

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION, BY RALPH STOUT xiii

DR. FITZSIMONS'S DEATH, SEPTEMBER 17, 1917 i

BLOOD, IRON, AND GOLD, SEPTEMBER 23, 1917 2
THE GHOST DANCE OF THE SHADOW HUNS, OCTOBER i,

1917 5

SAM WELLER AND MR. SNODGRASS, OCTOBER 2, 1917 8

BROOMSTICK PREPAREDNESS, OCTOBER 4, 1917 10

THE BONDHOLDERS AND THE PEOPLE, OCTOBER 7, 1917 12

FACTORIES OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP, OCTOBER 10, 1917 13

PILLAR -OF-SALT CITIZENSHIP, OCTOBER 12, 1917 16

BROOMSTICK APOLOGISTS, OCTOBER 14, 1917 18
THE LIBERTY LOAN AND THE PRO-GERMANS, OCTOBER

16, 1917 20

A DIFFICULT QUESTION TO ANSWER, OCTOBER 18, 1917 23

Now HELP THE LIBERTY LOAN, OCTOBER 20, 1917 25
A SQUARE DEAL FOR THE TRAINING CAMPS, OCTOBER 21,

1917 26
THE PASSING OF THE CRIPPLE, OCTOBER 23, 1917 28
THE PEACE OF COMPLETE VICTORY, OCTOBER 23, 1917 30
FIGHTING WORK FOR THE MAN OF FIGHTING AGE, OCTO
BER 25, 1917 32
WISE WOMEN AND FOOLISH WOMEN, OCTOBER 27, 1917 34
WHY CRY OVER SPILT MILK? OCTOBER 28, 1917 36
SAVE THE FOODSTUFF, OCTOBER 30, 1917 38
ON THE FIRING LINE, OCTOBER 31, 1917 40
NINE TENTHS OF WISDOM is BEING WISE IN TIME, NO
VEMBER i, 1917 42
WE ARE IN THIS WAR TO THE FINISH, NOVEMBER 2, 1917 43
SINISTER ALLIES, NOVEMBER 3, 1917 45

vi CONTENTS

THE NEW YORK MAYORALTY ELECTION, NOVEMBER 8,

1917 47

GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA, NOVEMBER 13, 1917 49

START THE SYSTEM OF UNIVERSAL MILITARY TRAINING

AT ONCE, NOVEMBER 17, 1917 52

A FIFTY-FIFTY WAR ATTITUDE, NOVEMBER 20, 1917 54

THE GERMANIZED SOCIALISTS AND PEACE, NOVEMBER

26, 1917 56

MOBILIZE OUR MAN POWER, DECEMBER i, 1917 58
THE LANDSDOWNE LETTER, DECEMBER 2, 1917 60
THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE, DECEMBER 5, 1917 62
FOUR BITES OF A CHERRY, DECEMBER 7, 1917 64
THE RED CROSS CHRISTMAS MEMBERSHIP DRIVE, DE
CEMBER 12, 1917 66
BEING BRAYED IN A MORTAR, DECEMBER 18, 1917 68
RENDERING A GREAT PUBLIC SERVICE, DECEMBER 20,

1917 71
A BETRAYAL OF DEMOCRACY, DECEMBER 21, 1917 73
BROOMSTICK PREPAREDNESS — A STUDY IN CAUSE AND

EFFECT, DECEMBER 27, 1917 76

OUR DUTY FOR THE NEW YEAR, JANUARY i, 1918 78
TELL THE TRUTH AND SPEED UP THE WAR, JANUARY 4,

1918 80
THE COST OF UNPREPAREDNESS, JANUARY 6, 1918 82
COOPERATION AND CONTROL, JANUARY 8, 1918 85
THE ARTEMUS WARD THEORY OF WAR, JANUARY 17, 1918 87
THE FRUITS OF WATCHFUL WAITING, JANUARY 18, 1918 89
TELL THE TRUTH, JANUARY 21, 1918 92
JUSTIFICATION OF CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM, JANUARY

28, 1918 93
SECRETARY BAKER'S GENERAL DENIAL, FEBRUARY 2,

1918 96

CONTENTS vii

LET GEORGE SPEED UP THE WAR, FEBRUARY 3, 1918 98
LET UNCLE SAM GET INTO THE GAME, FEBRUARY 5, 1918 101
CONSERVATION is IMPORTANT AND PRODUCTION is MORE

IMPORTANT, FEBRUARY 15, 1918 103

THE PEOPLE'S WAR, FEBRUARY 26, 1918 105

THE FRUITS OF FIFTY-FIFTY LOYALTY, MARCH 2, 1918 109
QUIT TALKING PEACE, MARCH 5, 1918 in

THE WORST ENEMIES OF CERTAIN LOYAL AMERICANS,

MARCH 10, 1918 113

GIRD UP OUR LOINS, MARCH 16, 1918 115

BOLSHEVIKI AT HOME AND ABROAD, MARCH 19, 1918 117
THE FRUITS OF OUR DELAY, MARCH 26, 1918 120

How THE HUN EARNS HIS TITLE, MARCH 31, 1918 122

THANK HEAVEN! APRIL 2, 1918 128

CITIZENS OR SUBJECTS? APRIL 6, 1918 129

WOMEN AND THE WAR, APRIL 12, 1918 133

To MY FELLOW AMERICANS OF GERMAN BLOOD, APRIL

16, 1918 J35

AN EXTRAORDINARY ACHIEVEMENT IN HUMAN UPBUILD
ING, APRIL 17, 1918
FREEDOM STANDS WITH HER BACK TO THE WALL, APRIL

20, 1918

A SQUARE DEAL FOR ALL AMERICANS, APRIL 27, 1918 142
THE GERMAN HORROR, MAY 2, 1918 145

SEDITION, A FREE PRESS, AND PERSONAL RULE, MAY 7,

1918 147

THE DANGERS or A PREMATURE PEACE, MAY 12, 1918 150
THE WAR SAVINGS CAMPAIGN, MAY 27, 1918 155

ANTI-BOLSHEVISM, JUNE 5, 1918 I58

GENERAL WOOD, JUNE 15, 1918 160

HELP RUSSIA Now, JUNE 20, 1918 162

viii CONTENTS

AN AMERICAN FOURTH OF JULY, JUNE 23, 1918 166

How NOT TO ADJOURN POLITICS, JUNE 25, 1918 167

HATS OFF TO THE INTERNATIONAL TYPOGRAPHICAL
UNION, JUNE 27, 1918 170

THE PERFORMANCE OF A GREAT PUBLIC DUTY, JULY 3,
1918 172

REPEAL THE CHARTER OF THE GERMAN-AMERICAN ALLI
ANCE, JULY n, 1918 174

EVERY MAN HAS A RIGHT TO ONE COUNTRY, JULY 15,
1918 177

MURDER, TREASON, AND PARLOR ANARCHY, JULY 18,
1918 180

BACK UP THE FIGHTING MEN AT THE FRONT, JULY 26,
1918 183

THE AMERICANS WHOM WE MOST DELIGHT TO HONOR,
AUGUST i, 1918 186

SOUND NATIONALISM AND SOUND INTERNATIONALISM,
AUGUST 4, 1918 188

THE MAN WHO PAYS AND THE MAN WHO PROFITS, AU
GUST 9, 1918 196

OUR DEBT TO THE BRITISH EMPIRE, AUGUST 16, 1918 200

THE CANDIDACY OF HENRY FORD, AUGUST 20, 1918 202

SPEED UP THE WORK FOR THE ARMY AND GIVE ALL WHO

ENTER IT FAIR PLAY, AUGUST 23, 1918 206

SENATOR LODGE'S NOBLE SPEECH, SEPTEMBER i, 1918 209
APPLIED PATRIOTISM, SEPTEMBER 8, 1918 211

GOOD LUCK TO THE ANTI-BOLSHEVISTS OF KANSAS, SEP
TEMBER 12, 1918 213
THE FOURTH LIBERTY LOAN, SEPTEMBER 17, 1918 216
FAIR PLAY AND No POLITICS, SEPTEMBER 20, 1918 218
SPIES AND SLACKERS, SEPTEMBER 24, 1918 221
QUIT PLAYING FAVORITES, SEPTEMBER 30, 1918 224
AIMS AND PEACE PROPOSALS, OCTOBER 12, 1918 226

CONTENTS ix

PERMANENT PREPAREDNESS AND THE LEAGUE OF NA
TIONS, OCTOBER 15, 1918 229
HIGH-SOUNDING PHRASES OF MUDDY MEANING, OCTO
BER 17, 1918 231
AN AMERICAN PEACE versus A RUBBER-STAMP PEACE,

OCTOBER 22, 1918 236

UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER, OCTOBER 26, 1918 239

WHAT ARE THE FOURTEEN POINTS? OCTOBER 30, 1918 241
FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF THE FOURTEEN POINTS,

OCTOBER 30, 1918 243

FOURTEEN SCRAPS OF PAPER, OCTOBER 31, 1918 248

THE TURKS SURRENDER UNCONDITIONALLY, NOVEMBER

3, 1918 251

PEACE, NOVEMBER 12, 1918 253

SACRIFICE ON COLD ALTARS, NOVEMBER 13, 1918 255

THE RED FLAG AND THE HUN PEACE DRIVE, NOVEMBER

14, 1918 258

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, NOVEMBER 17, 1918 261

AN AMERICAN CONGRESS, NOVEMBER 18, 1918 265

THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS AND THE ENSLAVEMENT OF

MANKIND, NOVEMBER 22, 1918 269

PRESIDENT WILSON AND THE PEACE CONFERENCE, NO
VEMBER 26, 1918 272
THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE, DECEMBER 2, 1918 277
THE MEN WHOSE LOT HAS BEEN HARDEST, DECEMBER 8,

1918 281

THE BRITISH NAVY, THE FRENCH ARMY, AND AMERICAN

COMMON SENSE, DECEMBER 17, 1918 283

LET us HAVE STRAIGHTFORWARD SPEAKING, DECEMBER

24, 1918 287

A SQUARE DEAL FOR THE MEN AT THE FRONT, DECEM
BER 25, 1918 289
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, JANUARY 13, 1919 292

ILLUSTRATIONS
THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND W. R. NELSON

From a snapshot Photogravure Frontispiece

FACSIMILE OF A NOTE FROM ROOSEVELT TO W. R.

NELSON xxii

FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF THE MANUSCRIPT OF ONE OF

ROOSEVELT'S EDITORIALS 2

INTRODUCTION

THE request, repeated and urgent, has come from
many sources that the editorial articles, contributed
by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt to The Kansas City
Star during our country's participation in the World
War, be preserved for the future. It is in response to
this request that this volume is published.

Newspaper publication is ephemeral. Newspaper
files are short-lived. Anybody who has examined a
newspaper of thirty years ago knows how flimsy it
is, how it breaks and disintegrates to the touch. It
lacks the enduring quality of the newspaper of sixty
or seventy-five years ago when other elements en
tered into the composition of news-print paper.
Newspaper publication is the thought of to-day; to
morrow, it is gone save for the impression left on
the mind of the reader. That the recollection of
Colonel Roosevelt's articles may have something to
appeal to aside from crumbling newspaper files is the
aim of this book. And so these expressions on the
events in a crisis in our national history — from the
mind of a man whose intense love of country was the
admiration of all who knew him, expressions which
at the time of their publication stirred many to
greater sacrifice for country, some to anger, even to
rage — are here presented in enduring form.

xiv INTRODUCTION

Colonel Roosevelt's contributions to The Star
were his most frequent expressions on the war; they
were the outpouring of a great soul deeply stirred by
the country's situation. There were more than one
hundred articles from his pen. They covered the
vital time of our part in the war from October, 1917,
until his death January 6, 1919.

The reason he chose The Star as his medium of
reaching the people, in a period when a large section
of the American people sought and was guided by
what he said, was that Colonel Roosevelt and The
Star had known and understood each other for a
long, long time. Their acquaintance dated back to
the period of his service in the New York legislature.
The Star saw behind his conduct then the qualities
and the spirit which it was continually seeking to
place at a premium in offices of public trust.

Later, in 1889, when President Harrison appointed
him a civil service commissioner, The Star said :

The appointment of Theodore Roosevelt as one of the civil
service commissioners is a hopeful sign that President Harri
son desires to give civil service reform a fair representation in
the government. Mr. Roosevelt is an accomplished gentle
man, with sincere aspirations for reformed methods of admin
istration, as shown by his career in the New York legislature
when Grover Cleveland was governor. Mr. Roosevelt is too
independent ever to serve as a party henchman, and his voice
and influence will always be in favor of what he believes to be
the most efficient and business-like administration of affairs.

Colonel Roosevelt and the founder and editor of
The Star, the late William R. Nelson, had met, but
they did not really know each other until after the

INTRODUCTION xv

war with Spain. In his canvass for the vice-presi
dency in 1900 Colonel Roosevelt was entertained at
the Nelson home, Oak Hall, Kansas City. From this
visit dated better acquaintance. They had much in
common and were alike in many characteristics:
frank, outspoken, impulsive, and passionately de
voted to the same ideals of private life and public
service.

I recall a story of an impulsive act of Colonel
Roosevelt back in his ranchman days. A man of
shady reputation had been appointed Indian Agent
with the Sioux on a Dakota reservation. He put into
effect many sharp practices with the Indians which
would line his pockets with money. Roosevelt's
ranch was not far away and ranch affairs took him to
the agency. One day he went to the agency and
sought the agent. *

" You are Mr. ? " the ranchman asked.

" Yes," was the reply.

" I have heard what you have been doing with the
Indians. You are a thief! Good-day! "

The story, as told, was that the agent, aghast at
the boldness of his visitor, turned and walked away.

The late Curtis Guild, Jr., of Boston, and Senator
Beveridge, of Indiana, were with Colonel Roosevelt
on the Oak Hall visit. They found delight in the
paintings and books in Mr. Nelson's home and
Colonel Roosevelt gave proof of his wide range of
knowledge by his instant recognition of the work of
painters of long-established reputation. In his in
spection of the library he asked to see what Mr.

xvi INTRODUCTION

Nelson had on the Greek dramatists. " I always ask
for them in a man's library," he remarked.

During this visit I was a listener at an argument
between the two men on partisanship. Mr. Nelson
had in his early days affiliated with the Democratic
Party. In 1876 he was Mr. Tilden's personal man
ager in Indiana. But with the party's treatment of
Tilden Mr. Nelson lost partisan zeal, and never after
could he be considered a party man. He founded
The Star in 1880 as an independent newspaper; it
has remained an independent newspaper.

Colonel Roosevelt's argument was, that to accom
plish anything in public affairs a man or a newspaper
had to belong to a party organization. He probably
had in mind his experience in the Elaine campaign
of 1884. His conclusion was that the American
people were wedded to the two-party system and
that one who aspired to do anything for the country
could achieve only by working through a party
organization.

Mr. Nelson granted what he said was true as to
an individual, but not as to a newspaper of the right
sort. It was perhaps true as to a newspaper which
had as one of its aims the securing of political honor
for its owner, but the newspaper sincerely devoted to
the public interest could wield greater power by
retaining its independence and in the end could ac
complish more substantial achievements, a state
ment verified by his own conduct of The Star. Colo
nel Roosevelt saw the force of Mr. Nelson's conten
tion, but stuck to his point that, with an individual,

INTRODUCTION xvii

accomplishment outside of party ranks was im
possible.

It is interesting to look back over the growth of
the mutual understanding and the fondness of the
two men for each other dating from that visit in
1900. After leaving Kansas City, Colonel Roosevelt
sent back a letter expressing his delight at the day
spent at Oak Hall, closing with " How I do wish I
could spend the week in your library instead of upon
this infernal campaigning trip! "

When the assassin's bullet struck down President
McKinley, Mr. Nelson sent a telegram to Colonel
Roosevelt expressing his horror at the deed and
pledging the whole-hearted support of his newspaper
in aiding him to carry the great burden which had
been placed on his shoulders.

Mr. Nelson had no wish to be a distributor of federal
patronage ; he was concerned in higher things. When
Colonel Roosevelt turned to him for advice on polit
ical matters, he was reluctant to give it, feeling his
own lack of real knowledge of the politics of Kansas
and Missouri and of the men who sought appoint
ments. Late in 1901 Colonel Roosevelt, asking
about conditions in Missouri, wrote, referring to St.
Louis men, " I think they have been rather after
the offices and not after success. ... I should like
to have some office-holder in Missouri to whom I
could tie.'*

Mr. Nelson asked the political writers of The Star
to write their estimate of the men seeking office and
leadership, and these were sent to the President

xviii INTRODUCTION

with his endorsement. The President repeatedly
followed the ideas of these letters, and it is a pleas
ure to record that in no instance was there subse
quently cause for regret for any selection based on
the letters.

In 1908 the President's appointment of the Farm
Life Commission received Mr. Nelson's commenda
tion, for he had long recognized the need of making
farm life more attractive; indeed, he would have
financed experiments along this line had he been
younger. At the same time Mr. Nelson spoke ap
provingly of the President's recent comment on the
courts, adding, " Courts need such criticism the
worst kind. They steadily undermine confidence in
law and legal justice."

[< I am sick at heart, " the President replied, " over
the way in which the courts have been prostituting
justice in the last few years. The greatest trouble
will follow if they do not alter their present attitude.
I suppose I shall ' pay ' myself in some way for what
I have said about the courts, but I have got to take
the risk."

In 1909, in the closing days of the Roosevelt Ad
ministration the President issued an executive order
looking to a quick settlement of a long-pending con
troversy over the channel of the Kaw River at Kan
sas City. It was unexpected; indeed, few in Kansas
City knew that the President was considering the
subject. The order cut straight to the heart of the
controversy in true Roosevelt fashion. The same
day Mr. Nelson sent this telegram to the President:

INTRODUCTION xix

It is quite worth while to have a real President of the
United States.

The next day this reply came from the President:

It is even better worth while to have a real editor of just
the right kind of paper.

The Star supported Taft in the campaign of 1908
because it had faith that he would carry out the
Roosevelt policies. Events early in the Taft Admin
istration weakened that faith; the Winona speech
withered it. Mr. Nelson had had no correspondence
with Colonel Roosevelt while he was hunting in
Africa. Two letters came from the ex- President, one
March 12, 1910, from the White Nile saying he
expected to return in June; another from Porto
Maurizio, a month later, saying, " I know you will
understand how delicate my position is," and asking
for an early conference with Mr. Nelson on his return
to this country. Mr. Nelson's final, open break with
President Taft was " more in sorrow than in anger " ;
there was never bitterness of feeling, solely regret at
a mistake in believing Mr. Taft stood for principles
which events early in his administration showed con
vincingly he did not stand for.

Writing to Colonel Roosevelt, in 1910, after his
return from Africa, Mr. Nelson referred to the Wi
nona speech and the Ballinger case, concluding: " I
have wondered whether sooner or later there would
not have to be a new party of the Square Deal."

xx INTRODUCTION

The succeeding two years there were frequent con
ferences and interchange of letters between Colonel
Roosevelt and Mr. Nelson. The latter had absolute
confidence and abiding faith in Roosevelt. Late in
1910 the Colonel's enemies were seeking to torment
him from many angles. Mr. Nelson wrote him :

It has occurred to me that the opposition will constantly
be prodding you and lying about you with the evident pur
pose of getting you angry and so putting you to a disad
vantage. That is the only hope on earth they have of stop
ping you.

Your comment on Wm. Barnes was fine. It recalled to me
an incident connected with Governor Tilden, who was the
wisest politician I ever knew. As a young man I was his man
ager in Indiana. After the defeat of Lucius Robinson, whom
he was backing for Governor of New York, I went East at
his invitation to confer with him. He asked me to see Kelly,
Clarkson, Potter, Dorsheimer, and Sam Cox, and some of the
other men who had been fighting him, to get their views.
" What shall 1 tell them about your position if they ask me?"
I said. " Oh, tell them," he said, " that I am very amiable."
In my adventures since that time I have often had occasion
to remember that as sound advice. Amiability is a great
weapon at times.

But my point is that you never need to defend yourself at
all. The people will take care of your defense. Besides, it is
always a bad policy, in my opinion, to get to talking about
the past. You are a Progressive. Your nose is to the front.
The past doesn't interest you. So I hope you will ignore the
critics, no matter how exasperating they may be. And if you
can't ignore them, laugh at them!

To this the Colonel replied :

I guess you are right; but it does make me flame with in
dignation when men who pretend to be especially the cus
todians of morals, and who sit in judgment from an Olympian
height of virtue on the deeds of other men, themselves ofi'end

INTRODUCTION xxi

in a way that puts them on a level with the most corrupt

scoundrel in a city government

But this does not alter the fact that, as you say, my busi
ness is to pay no heed to the slanders of the past, but to keep
my face steadily turned toward the future. Here in New York
the outlook is rather dark. There are a great multitude of
men, some of them nominally respectable, but timid or mis
led, who do certainly, although rather feebly, object to the
domination of Barnes and his fellow bosses; but who do sin
cerely, but rather feebly, prefer clean politics to corrupt
politics; but who, nevertheless, dread any interference with
what they regard as the rights of big business, any assault on
what I regard as an improperly arranged tariff, any effort to
work for the betterment of social conditions in the spirit of
Abraham Lincoln; who regard all assaults and efforts of this
nature as being worse than the rule of small bosses and the
petty corruption of local politicians.

Ill

As the presidential campaign of 1912 developed,
there were frequent exchanges of views. In May
Colonel Roosevelt wrote that he was confident of
victory in the Republican Convention in spite of all
that was being done against him by the men in con
trol of the party. Only those who were in the thick
of the Republican Convention in Chicago in June
realize how the fighting blood of the men on the
progressive side, from the leader down, was aroused.
Mr. Nelson was at Chicago during the Republican
Convention. Colonel Roosevelt sought his advice
throughout. The course which was ultimately fol
lowed had Mr. Nelson's full approval. In a telegram
to Colonel Roosevelt after the break from the
Republican Party, Mr. Nelson said: " I am with

xxii INTRODUCTION

you tooth and nail, to the limit and to the finish."
Following those vivid days and nights of the Re
publican Convention — a period no active partici
pant can ever erase from his memory — came the
Orchestra Hall meeting, the first definite step to
organize the Progressive Party, the National Pro
gressive Party Convention in August, and then the
memorable three-party campaign.

In the midst of the campaign Mr. Nelson and the
Colonel had the time and inclination to carry on a
correspondence on things not directly touching the
issues on which the fight was made. In a letter from
his summer home at Magnolia, Massachusetts, Mr.
Nelson dropped into a discussion of what he called
his two hobbies — to drive money out of the voting
booth and out of the courthouse. His idea was that
all legitimate expenses of candidates for office should
be paid by the State, and that there should be a re
form of the voting system which would avoid the
necessity of party organization to get out the vote.
Having the vote taken by letter carriers was one
way that appealed to him. He would make justice
free, " not for sale as it is to-day when the rich man
gets the best lawyers." Lawyers should be officers
of the court in fact as well as in theory, and should
be compensated for their work by the State, not by
the litigants.

Replying to this letter late in July, Colonel Roose
velt said:

I am with you in principle on both the points you raise. I
am with you on the question of the State paying the election

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INTRODUCTION xxiii

expenses right away now. I have always stood for that course
as the only one to give the poor man a fair chance in politics.
Your other idea is new, but I have long been feeling my
way to the same conclusion. A lawyer is not like a doctor.
No real good for the community comes from the development
of legalism, from the development of that kind of ability
shown by the great corporation lawyers who lead our bar;
whereas good does come from medical development. The
high-priced lawyer means, when reduced to his simplest ex
pression, that justice tends to go to the man with the longest
purse. But the proposal is such a radical one that I do not
know how it would be greeted, and it is something we will
have to fight for later.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Late in September, during a campaign tour of the
West, Colonel Roosevelt spent a Sunday evening at
Oak Hall. The subject of campaign contributions
came up, and the candidate became reminiscent,
recounting his first experience as governor of New
York with campaign contributions. It was an in
cident, he said, that might readily be misconstrued
and so he had not discussed it publicly.

Soon after he was elected governor of New York,
he had discovered that the street railways were pay
ing almost no taxes. Accordingly he took steps to
introduce a franchise tax bill into the legislature.
Mr. Odell at once came to him and told him that
he was following in the footsteps of Bryan and
" Potato" Pingree, which was the most severe
condemnation at that time. That warning having
no effect, Mr. Platt came to him and said, " Gov
ernor, you can't do this. Don't you know that the
Whitney- Ryan combination was one of the heaviest
contributors to your campaign fund? "

xxiv INTRODUCTION

" The deuce they were," said Roosevelt; " I sup
posed they made their contributions to Tammany."

" Of course," Platt returned, " they contributed
to Tammany, but they gave us just half as much as
they did Tammany. If they had n't expected fair
treatment from us they would have given it all to
Tammany."

" I told Platt they would get fair treatment from
us," Roosevelt said, in telling the story, " but if
they expected immunity from taxation they were
going to be left."

At that time the Whitney-Ryan combination
owned the New York street railways and so were
going to be hard hit by the franchise tax. Mr.
Roosevelt added that the franchise tax bill went
through and created quite a scandal in high finance
at that time. " Everybody was talking about it," he
said, " and all the big financiers knew about it. So I
never could have any sympathy with the view that
Harriman or the Standard Oil people — if they
really contributed to my campaign fund — or any
other interest of that sort gave any money for cam
paign purposes under a misapprehension. They
knew from my deeds as well as my words that they
could not buy immunity from me, and that the best
they could expect was a square deal. I said one
time to Bacon, ' Bob, why is it that Morgan and all
his crowd are against me? Don't they know that
they would get justice from me?' Bacon smiled,
hesitated, and then said, 'Yes, I suppose they do.1"

In the Progressive campaign Mr. Nelson violated

INTRODUCTION xxv

a personal rule of many years' standing which for
bade his personal participation in politics. Into this
campaign he went with his whole soul. Then past
seventy years of age, he was abundantly able to
direct but not to give of his physical strength. He
assumed responsibility for organizing the party in
Missouri and lent his newspaper organization to that
end. He thought day and night for the party's can
didate and the party's principles, and at the end of
the campaign he had left undone nothing which he
could have done for the candidate who had his ab
solute and unqualified confidence. After the election
Colonel Roosevelt wrote Mr. Nelson:

I can never overstate how much I appreciate all that you
have done and been throughout this fight. My dear Sir, I
am very grateful and I know that the only way I can show
my gratitude is so to bear myself that you will feel no cause
for regret at having stood by me.

After the campaign of 1912, which showed the re
markable strength of Colonel Roosevelt with the
people and demonstrated that he was still a factor
in American public life to be reckoned with, the tor
menting by his political enemies continued. From
many quarters darts had been hurled at " the old
lion." In July, 1914, after a libel suit for fifty
thousand dollars had been started, Mr. Nelson tele
graphed the Colonel at Oyster Bay:

Too bad so much of the burden should fall on you. Would
gladly share it with you.

In a few days the message brought this letter:
When a man is under constant fire and begins to feel, now

xxvi INTRODUCTION

and then, as if he did not have very many friends, and as if
the forces against him were perfectly overwhelming, then,
even though he is prepared to battle alone absolutely to the
end, he is profoundly appreciative of the support of those
whose support is best worth having. Your telegram not only
gave me real comfort, but touched and moved me profoundly.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

That was the end of the recorded correspondence
between Colonel Roosevelt and Mr. Nelson. The
former came West on a speaking tour in the fall of
1914 and during his stay in Kansas City was a
guest again at Oak Hall. Mr. Nelson accompanied
him to a campaign meeting in a skating rink packed
with people in Kansas City, Kansas, where he spoke
in a sweltering atmosphere for more than an hour
preaching with all his old vigor and enthusiasm the
doctrines of the Progressive Party.

There was the same display from great crowds of
people, along the streets around the hall and every
where he went, of the keen interest and personal
admiration which Colonel Roosevelt's presence in
Kansas City territory always brought out. Kansas
City and its vicinity had been Roosevelt ground
since Kansas and Western Missouri became ac
quainted with him; indeed, any appearance by him
was sufficient to fill Convention Hall in Kansas City
to its capacity of fifteen thousand people.

Following Mr. Nelson's death in April, 1915, there
came from Colonel Roosevelt a sincere appreciation
of his sorrow, ending, " We have lost literally one of
the foremost citizens of the United States, one of the
men whom our Republic could least afford to spare."

INTRODUCTION xxvii

In the 1916 campaign Colonel Roosevelt and The
Star were of the same mind. Deeply attached to the
principles on which the battle of 1912 had been con
ducted by the Progressive Party, they were con
scious of the futility of continuing the fight for those
principles in a third party. The American devotion
to the two-party system Had been convincingly
demonstrated again. The World War had been in
progress two years, the Lusitania had been sunk
without stirring the Administration to more than
impotent words. Both thought that the Republican
Party presented the only hope of accomplishment.
Colonel Roosevelt was The Star's choice for the
nomination, but his nomination was too much to
expect after the break of 1912, and it gave its
support to Mr. Hughes.

Early in June, 1917, Mr. Irwin Kirkwood, Mr.
Nelson's son-in-law, on his way West from New
York, chanced to meet Colonel Roosevelt on the
train. A visit in the Colonel's stateroom followed.
The conversation turned to the seeming impossi
bility of a Roosevelt division for France, a subject in
which Mr. Kirkwood was personally interested, for
he had been assured service in France if the Colonel's
ambition were realized. The Colonel was discour
aged over his failure to get active service and restless
at the Administration's slow preparation for war.
Of the Nation's whole-hearted support of the war he
was certain, and the high thought with him at the

xxviii INTRODUCTION

time was to bring influences to bear on the Admin
istration to speed up.

At this time Colonel Roosevelt was contributing
a monthly article for The Metropolitan Magazine
written long in advance of its publication. Daily,
momentous problems of the war were coming up.
Mr. Kirkwood felt strongly that the American
people were eager to know what Theodore Roosevelt
thought on these questions. If he could reach the
public quickly, great good would result to this
country's cause. Recalling that Mr. Nelson had
said, when there was criticism of the ex-President's
purpose to write for The Outlook, when it was first
announced, he would be mighty glad to have him
write for The Star, Mr. Kirkwood said :

" Colonel Roosevelt, would n't it be fine if you
could get your ideas on the war to the people before
they were twenty-four hours old? The only way that
could be done is through a newspaper."

11 By George! " said the Colonel, with emphasis,
" I never thought of that: it sounds like a good
idea."

Mr. Kirkwood said if he would consider the sug
gestion, The Star would certainly welcome him.

' ' Such a proposition would not tempt me from many
newspapers," Colonel Roosevelt continued. "In
fact I know of no others except The Kansas City
Star and The Philadelphia North American from
which I would consider it. The Star particularly
appeals to me as being printed in the heart of the
great progressive Middle Western country, and be-

INTRODUCTION xxix

cause, too, of my love and affection for Colonel
Nelson."

Colonel Roosevelt remarked that he would like
to discuss the proposal with Mrs. Roosevelt and his
daughter, Mrs. Nicholas Longworth, for he had
great confidence in the judgment of both. On Mr.
Kirkwood's return to New York a fortnight later,
Colonel Roosevelt said he was still " filled up " with
the idea and asked Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood out to
dinner at Oyster Bay with Mrs. Roosevelt and
himself. Mrs. Kirkwood was unable to go. Mr.
Kirkwood again discussed the proposal. Colonel
Roosevelt's position was that if The Star was still
unafraid, he was willing to start. The next time the
Colonel came to New York he had tea with Mr. and
Mrs. Kirkwood, and^ there was a further full and
frank discussion.

"You, of course, know what you are doing,"
Colonel Roosevelt said. " Many people do not like
my ideas and probably many of your subscribers
will be perfectly furious at The Star for printing my
editorials."

Both Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood assured him full
consideration had been given to that phase, and
while it was possible he and The Star might not
always agree, that fact would not stand in the way
of the arrangement.

So the agreement was there entered into. Colonel
Roosevelt suggested that as 1920 was a presidential
year the connection be for two years or until October,
1919, to which Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood assented.

xxx INTRODUCTION

Colonel Roosevelt said he never pretended to be
much of a business man, but a formal contract was
the usual thing; he had one with The Metropolitan.
Anyhow he would gladly sign it. He was asked if he
desired a contract and answered he did not.

'You understand and we do — " said Mr. Kirk-
wood.

Without waiting for the sentence to be finished,
Colonel Roosevelt said quickly, "That's all I want
to know. Let 's don't bother with a contract."

And on that basis the Colonel wrote for The Star
until his death.

Early in September I was delegated to go to New
York, as Managing Editor of The Star, to discuss
with the Colonel the details of his work for the paper.
I met him at a hotel in Fifty-Seventh Street where he
went on the days he came in from Oyster Bay. Mrs.
Roosevelt was with him. Roosevelt was in high
spirits, which was no uncommon thing. I recall
vividly my introduction to Mrs. Roosevelt.

" Edith," he said, leading me into the room where
Mrs. Roosevelt was, " here is my new boss! "

I did n't say it, but the thought came to me that
I would prefer the task of " bossing " a tornado.

The talk that followed was that The Star had no
desire to guide what he wrote; that it desired him to
write whatever was in him, and it would print it.
The Colonel said that was exactly what he wanted ;
he could do nothing else. We discussed the dis
tribution over the country of his writings, which he
left entirely to The Star, with the request that they

INTRODUCTION xxxi

be not offered to certain newspapers which had long
shown a spirit of personal animosity to him and of
habitual hostility toward his principles, a suggestion
which was wholly agreeable to The Star. He asked
about the length and frequency of the articles he
was to write. It was agreed that an editorial of
around five hundred words was ideal, and at the
start there would be two contributions a week.
Later they were more frequent. The Colonel said he
would probably find it difficult to keep down to five
hundred words, but he recognized the limitations of
newspaper space and would do his best.

" Now," he said, " if I get too highbrow, don't
hesitate to tell me. I 'm no tender flower; I can
stand criticism."

His secretary had come into the room to receive
dictation from accumulated correspondence. I arose
to go. " Stay with us," the Colonel said, " until I
finish this; you are a member of the family now."

Short, crisp sentences came from him as he dic
tated, each with the animation of a face-to-face
conversation with the writers of the letters.

It was arranged that the Colonel was to take up
his duties the first of October, and a few days after
this meeting announcement was made the country
over that Theodore Roosevelt was to write for The
Kansas City Star. Immediately applications for the
right to print the articles poured in from newspapers
throughout the country.

Colonel Roosevelt came West in September on a
speaking tour which included Kansas City. So he

xxxii INTRODUCTION

came into the office of The Star on the morning of
September 22, 1917, and went to a desk which had
been assigned him, with the remark, " The cub re
porter will now begin work." He was fond of that
designation and often in conversation referred to
himself as " The Star's cub reporter." With pencil
he wrote out on newspaper copy-paper, with much
scratching and interlining, the editorial, (< Blood,
Iron, and Gold," which appeared the following day.
His first editorial, however, was, a short time before,
written on suggestion of Mr. Kirkwood, a brief piece
on the death of Dr. W. S. Fitzsimons, of Kansas
City, who was killed by a bomb in an airplane attack
on a hospital in France — the first American officer
to fall in the war.

The same day Colonel Roosevelt wrote another
editorial for later publication. He was good nature
itself that Saturday morning in the office, joked and
chatted with members of the staff, and seemed to be
enjoying the novelty of his new connection.

The following Sunday there was a luncheon of The
Star family at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood,
at which the " new cub reporter " made himself
thoroughly at home. Editors, reporters, and men
of the mechanical and circulation departments were
there and had luncheon with the Colonel. He
mingled with all and took delight in chatting with
them of their work. During the afternoon he made
an informal talk to " the family " out on the lawn,
in which he commended the spirit of working to
gether shown in the expression " The Star family."

INTRODUCTION xxxiii

He spoke, too, of his long acquaintance with the
aims and purposes of Mr. Nelson which were the
aims and purposes of The Star, and said, as he had
said before, that The Star was one of two daily
newspapers with which he would be proud of a
connection.

The arrangement was that Colonel Roosevelt was
to telegraph his editorials to The Star from Oyster
Bay or wherever he was when he wrote them. They
were put in type in The Star office and sent out from
there for simultaneous publication in a selected list
of about fifty newspapers. These included the best-
known newspapers in the country and represented
every section. The service was without charge be
yond telegraph tolls, it being The Star's wish to give
the widest diffusion possible to Colonel Roosevelt's
ideas on the conduct of the war through the best
channel in each city.

Frequently there were suggestions from The Star
to the Colonel. Always he was gracious in his treat
ment of those suggestions, invariably writing along
the lines indicated and often amplifying and better
ing them. On the other hand — except in two in
stances — the Colonel's editorials were printed just
as they were written, and if any change in copy were
considered advisable it was made only after he had
been consulted by wire and had approved it.

From the start the country was much interested
in the expressions from the Colonel. The news
papers which received them printed them faithfully
and conspicuously. However, the service had been

xxxiv INTRODUCTION

in operation not more than a fortnight before there
came rumbles of disapproval and doubt, almost
altogether from newspapers published south of
Mason and Dixon's Line.

One of the early editorials, entitled " Sam Weller
and Mr. Snodgrass," presented Uncle Sam, " eight
months after Germany went to war with us, and we
severed relations with Germany as the first move in
our sixty days' stern foremost drift into, not going
to, war," as the boastful Mr. Snodgrass, still taking
off his coat and announcing in a loud voice what he
was about to do. This drew from the mayor of
Abilene, Texas, the following letter to The Star-
Telegram, of Fort Worth, Texas, which was publish
ing the Roosevelt articles:

ABILENE, TEXAS, October 3, 1917. Fort Worth Star-Tele
gram, Fort Worth, Tex. The Roosevelt article appearing in
your paper of this date is nothing short of the expression of
the thoughts of a seditious conspirator who should be shot
dead, and, the Editor-in-Chief of your paper should be tarred
and feathered for publishing it, and your paper should be
excluded from the mails of the United States. You may
publish this if you wish, and stop my paper.

E. N. KIRBY

Mayor of Abilene

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram promptly pub
lished Mayor Kirby's letter, under the caption " The
Retort Courteous," adding the following:

The Editor-in-Chief presents his compliments to the
Mayor of Abilene and begs to say that should he conclude
personally to conduct a tar and feather expedition in our
direction, he will experience no great difficulty in locating the

INTRODUCTION xxxv

said Editor-in-Chief. Meanwhile we can assure him that his
reception will not be lacking in hospitality or warmth.

The mayor of Abilene and the editor did not meet.
Later, in an editorial devoted to apologists for the
delay in making war who were saying, " Why cry
over spilt milk? " Colonel Roosevelt referred to the
incident, saying:

Recently the mayor of Abilene, Texas, expressed his dis
approval of my pointing out that we, as a Nation, had wholly
failed to prepare, by saying that I was " a seditious conspir
ator who ought to be shot dead," and that the editor of the
newspaper publishing the article " should be tarred and
feathered." Although differing in method of expression, this
slight homicidal bleat of the gentle-souled (and doubtless
entirely harmless) mayor of Abilene, Texas, is exactly similar
in thought to the utterances of all these sheeplike creatures
who raise quavering or incoherent protests against every
honest and patriotic man who points out the damage done by
our failure to prepare.

When the " cub reporter " came to take on his
" new job," he learned for the first time of the condi
tions at Camp Funston, in Kansas, the big national
army training camp of the Middle West, to which
his old friend, Major-General Leonard Wood, had
been assigned. The drafted men were assembled
there from the farms and towns of the Middle West
before adequate provision had been made for their
care or their training. They were trained with
wooden cannon, and broomsticks served in place of
rifles. Colonel Roosevelt wrote an editorial entitled

xxxvi INTRODUCTION

41 Broomstick Preparedness," which touched mildly
on the conditions at Funston. The expression
" Broomstick Preparedness " caught popular fancy
as typifying the Administration's delay in many as
pects of war preparation. It stuck in the public
mind. It was widely used by newspapers and by
speakers who thought the Government was not
showing sufficient speed. An editorial, " Broomstick
Apologists," followed, directed at people who an
swered criticism of delay by making excuses for
delay.

From the beginning Colonel Roosevelt had in the
main devoted his articles to speeding up the prepara
tions for making war. The boosting of Liberty bonds
and the various war drives, the pacifists and hyphen
ated enemies on our own soil, were not overlooked by
any means, but the thing that seared his soul was
the lack of speed in making ready for actual warfare.
When his connection with The Star began, we had
been officially at war nearly six months, and how
little the Government had accomplished toward
equipping for actual warfare was continuously held
up in his articles.

Colonel Roosevelt used the method, followed by
newspaper writers who earnestly seek to achieve
results, of pounding continually on a few things,
dressing each article in different language, but keep
ing to the front all the time the central idea, present
ing the same thoughts in article after article, but
striving in each so to change the presentation that
the ideas would finally enter the reader's mind and

INTRODUCTION xxxvii

stir him to action. Mr. Nelson used this method in
the conduct of The Star. For many years, beginning
with its first publication, The Star advocated parks
and boulevards for Kansas City. It hammered away
on the subject in nearly every issue. It took almost
twenty years to do it, but at the end a splendid sys
tem of parks and boulevards stands as a monument
to The Star's persistence.

Article after article Colonel Roosevelt devoted to
the slow speed in war-making until there was finally
a response in Washington. It heard from public
opinion. War-making was speeded up, although at
the best and in the end there were many, many
deficiencies in our war machine.

Colonel Roosevelt's criticisms of the Administra
tion were not widely popular. The Star never had
any idea they would be popular, but it believed they
were right and for the real good of the country. As
he had foreseen when the connection was made,
" Many of your subscribers will be perfectly furious
at The Star for printing my editorials." They were.
They wrote to The Star to denounce the Colonel for
writing the articles and The Star for printing them.
In popular discussion in the Middle West forms of
disapproval ranged from " He should stand by the
President " to "He should be stood before a stone
wall and shot." Generally the user of the latter
phrase added " at sunrise." That was an expression
often heard. It was used by political orators with
effect. Colonel Roosevelt knew full well of the feel
ing in the West and South toward his articles. He

xxxviii INTRODUCTION

wrote once asking what effect the storm was having
on The Star. Never a word from him to show he
cared one whit about himself. He knew he was doing
the right thing for the country; he went ahead.

The frank truth is, there was a strong and active
pacifist element in the territory in which The Star
circulated. It had not been for preparedness. It had
voted for President Wilson in 1916 largely " because
he kept us out of war." Undeniably that idea was
popular. A candidate for governor in a neighboring
state, running on the Republican ticket, had made a
campaign identical with the Democratic slogan and
had carried the state, which at the same time gave
its vote to the Democratic presidential candidate.
But once we were in war the people of this section
responded nobly; they went to the limit, but for a
long time after we were in war they did not approve
the prodding-up of Washington. The hostility to
ward the Roosevelt articles in the South was more
pronounced. At the beginning of the service ten
Southern newspapers were taking it. Their state
ments about discontinuance ran from ' ' We find
further publication inadvisable in our territory " to
an apology to their readers for ever having allowed
the Roosevelt articles to enter their columns.

Colonel Roosevelt was not without defenders;
many of them thought and said he was rendering
the greatest service to the country in all his career.
But in the excited state of mind in the spring of 1918,
when the Germans were driving toward Paris, it re
quired courage to defend the articles. Many, how-

INTRODUCTION xxxix

ever, spoke out boldly; others did not. Party lines
were not followed strictly. Republicans were not so
bitter as men of the President's party. ' We must
stand by the President " had a popular appeal
regardless of whether the Government was function
ing efficiently or not. The view was widely held that
it was unpatriotic to criticize the President. Fre
quently it was charged that Colonel Roosevelt's
purposes were political, not patriotic. The articles
were often decried as pro-German propaganda and
The Star was branded as pro-German for publishing
them.

In April, 1918, when this feeling was at its height,
when the people in Kansas City's territory were in a
highly inflamed state of feeling toward criticism of
the Government, Colonel Roosevelt sent a ringing
editorial, " Freedom Stands with her Back to the
Wall," which The Star did not consider it advisable
to publish. It had no doubt of the entire righteous
ness of the criticism passed on the officials at Wash
ington, for the fruition of their slowness was shown
in the poor showing America was making in these
critical days, but it could see no good to come from
the publication: in its opinion the article would only
further inflame Colonel Roosevelt's enemies and
irritate his friends. Colonel Roosevelt was informed
of the office opinion of this article as he was on a
later article (" How Not to Adjourn Politics," June
25) which was not published. He acquiesced in the
decision, saying that he could readily conceive of
local conditions which made their publication ill-

xl INTRODUCTION

advised. He asked that they be telegraphed to two
other newspapers, which was done. The Star was
willing to go as far as it could go without, in its
judgment, lessening the effectiveness of the articles
in accomplishing the speeding-up of the war, but it
would not go beyond this point.

In July, when criticism had caused the removal of
many inefficients at Washington and when Ameri
can troops were beginning to reach France, The
Star was barred from the Public Library at Fulton,
Missouri, an intensely Democratic town in Central
Missouri, " for disloyalty to the present Administra
tion." The notice read :

DEAR SIR: By order from the library board of the Public
Library I am advised to have you discontinue our subscrip
tion to The Daily Star and The Times. Disloyalty to the
present Administration is the reason given for the action
taken.

Yours sincerely

FRANCES F. WATSON

Librarian

Answering this editorially, The Star said that
throughout the war it had taken the course of calling
attention to the mistakes of the Government rather
than remaining silent on its mistakes; that it did not
believe in saying the country was doing finely when
it was not; that it believed in exposing inefficiency
and rooting it out. It directed attention to results
already accomplished by criticism in bringing into
the war preparations men like Schwab, Goethals,
Stettinius, March, Baruch, and others, adding:
" The Star is proud to belong to the little group of

INTRODUCTION xli

constructive critics, including preeminently Colonel
Roosevelt, who worked to get wrong conditions
changed and to contribute to the present result,
which to-day is the salvation of the cause we fight
for. For it to have done anything else would have
been faithlessness to its trust."

When at last the stirring-up of the Administration
had borne fruit and American troops were in France
and on the way in considerable, though disappoint
ing, numbers, Colonel Roosevelt slowed down his
bombardment of the Washington authorities. His
campaign had produced results. He was right in
doing all he could to speed up war preparations, and
he stood his ground in the face of widespread censure
in the way he always did. [Hostile newspapers had
demanded that the Postmaster-General suppress the
circulation of the Roosevelt articles; indeed, a post-
office inspector had visited Kansas City with the
idea of denying The Star admission to the mails,
but the Administration 'made no further move in
this direction.

Even when the turning of the tide had set in,
Roosevelt's demand was for men, more men, and
then more men for France. He would have in all
six or seven million men in training, and four mil
lion American soldiers in France in the spring of
1919. In the first article he sent after the news of
Quentin's death, he said:

Now and always afterwards we of this country will walk
with our heads high because of the men who face death and
wounds, and so many of whom have given their lives for

xlii INTRODUCTION

this nation and for the great ideals of humanity across the
sea. But we must not let our pride and our admiration
evaporate in mere pride, in mere admiration of what others
have done. We must put the whole strength of this nation
back of the fighting men at the front. We owe it to them.

Later on the good effect of Colonel Roosevelt's
criticism was widely recognized. The Nation, one
of the Colonel's bitterest opponents, in general a
strong supporter of the Administration, said of his
editorials: " It is largely to him that we owe our
ability to discuss peace terms and to criticize at all."

Summing up the effect of Colonel Roosevelt's cam
paign to speed up our part in the war, The Star said
editorially :

There were periods of intolerance when neither Mr. Roose
velt nor The Star was under any illusions as to the reception
that would be given frank criticism. But it was essential that
such criticism be made in order to correct evils that were
really threatening the outcome of the war

The selective draft was the big achievement of the Admin
istration in 1917. But having prepared this, the Government
proceeded in most leisurely fashion, apparently not getting
the slightest comprehension of the danger to the Allied cause
resulting from Russia's collapse.

The War Department continued to be run, as it had been
in the past, by amiable old gentlemen who were wholly unfit
for the task. Although airplanes had become an essential
feature of modern warfare, it was not until weeks after war
had been declared that the department sent a commission to
Europe to learn what a military airplane was. Rifles are usu
ally regarded as a part of the military equipment of troops.
But it was two months after the declaration of war before
the War Department decided what type of rifle to make. An
army of millions of men was certain to need uniforms, but
the easy-going quartermaster-general turned down the offer
of the wool manufacturers' association for the entire output

INTRODUCTION xliii

of the country and the result was that the soldiers went into
the winter without warm clothing or overcoats. As for ar
tillery, the incapacity was complete.

Meanwhile we sent ' a small expeditionary force to France,
and in the autumn began sending troops across in a leisurely
way, at the rate of ten thousand a week.

Then suddenly, late in March, with the German army
driving straight on Paris and the Allied defenses giving way,
under the appeal of Lloyd George we suddenly woke to the
fact that we had been playing with the war. From that time
on we acted as if we had a man's job, and we got into the line
just in time to save the situation.

All through the fall and winter of last year what Mr.
Roosevelt and the other outspoken critics were trying to do
was to arouse the country and the Administration to the
magnitude of the task and to the danger from delay. They
succeeded only partly. But they did succeed to the extent of
forcing the removal of incompetent departmental chiefs, and
the substitution of efficient men who were able to handle
the emergency when the Administration finally discovered
that the emergency existed.

Looking back over the events of the last eighteen months,
we believe no fair-minded American can fail to perceive the
patriotic service done by Mr. Roosevelt and other critics,
who were seeking to awaken the Government from a lethargy
that just missed proving fatal to the Allied cause.

Colonel Roosevelt's last visit to his desk in the
editorial rooms of The Star was early in October,
1918. It struck those who had been associated with
him that he was not quite as fit as usual. I asked
him if it were true the physicians had placed him on
a diet. He said it was, but, to be frank, he had not
given much heed to their recommendations. In a
discussion at his desk with men of the editorial force

xliv INTRODUCTION

a recent article about Roosevelt by George Creel
came up. " I must admit/' said Colonel Roosevelt,
laughing, " he took a rather jaundiced view of me."

Mr. Kirkwood was away in the army, but Mrs.
Kirkwood was in Kansas City and the Colonel
stayed at their home during his visit. At this time a
subject was brought up which had been talked over
along in the summer — a visit from him to the battle
front to write at first hand of the American forces.
Newspapers which were receiving the service and
others which had heard of the suggestion were eager
for Roosevelt articles from France, but from the
first the Colonel had demurred and now said a final
" No." His reason was that he could not go as a
private citizen, as he had been denied permission
to go as a soldier; it would not only be unbecoming
for a former president of the United States to go in
any newspaper capacity, but how to treat him would
be an embarrassing question to France.

The tide had turned toward the Allies, and the
country was certain the defeat of the enemy was
a question of a short time. Colonel Roosevelt's
articles turned to a discussion of the kind of peace
there should be and examinations of the President's
11 Fourteen Points " and his notes to Austria. On
November 1 1 - - the day the armistice was signed -
it was considered necessary for Colonel Roosevelt to
go to a hospital in New York. From his hospital
room he telegraphed that day an editorial joining
in the general rejoicing over peace and appraising
tersely our part in the war.

INTRODUCTION xlv

A few days later there came an editorial prompted
by a letter from a woman friend in California.
Visiting this friend was another woman whose son
had died of influenza in the navy. That mother had
said she had given her boy proudly to her country,
" but if only he could have died with a gun in his
hand — a little glory for him and a thought for me
that my sacrifice had not been useless." The Cali
fornia friend had written: " There must be other
mothers who feel they have laid their sacrifices on
cold altars. You have written much that will com
fort the mothers whose sons have paid with their
bodies in battle. Is n't there something you can say
to comfort these other mothers? "

The letter touched Colonel Roosevelt deeply. " I
felt a real pang when I received this letter," he
wrote, " because the thought suggested had been in
my mind and yet I had failed to express it." The
editorial, " Sacrifices on Cold Altars," which he
wrote in response, gave consolation from the heart.
It made it clear that all who had given their lives in
the country's service, whether in action or from dis
ease, stood on " an exact level of service and sacrifice
and honor and glory." It concluded:

The mother or wife whose son or husband has died, whether
in battle or by fever or in the accident inevitable in hurriedly
preparing a modern army for war, must never feel that the
sacrifice has'been laid on " a cold altar." There is no gradation
of honor among these gallant men and no essential gradation
of service. They all died that we might live; our debt is to
all of them, and we can pay it even personally only by striving
so to live as to bring a little nearer the day when justice and

xlvi INTRODUCTION

mercy shall rule in our own homes and among the nations of
the world.

From his entrance to the hospital until his depar
ture on Christmas day, the editorials were less fre
quent. The Peace Conference, the Congressional
elections, and the League of Nations were uppermost
in public thought, and on these subjects the Colonel
wrote several editorials. Both Colonel Roosevelt
and The Star were anxious to find some means to
lessen the chance of war through international organ
ization. Both feared, from President Wilson's ad
dresses, that he had in view some grandiose plan that
Would be impractical. In December a member of
The Star's staff visited the Colonel in Roosevelt
Hospital, New York. At that time he had written
one or two editorials discussing the subject in a
tentative way. He was asked if he did not think he
could say something more positive.

41 1 doubt it," he said. " I feel there is so little that
really can be done by any form of treaty to prevent
war that it would be disappointing for me to point
it out. Any treaty adopted under the influence of
war emotions would be like the good resolutions
adopted at a mass meeting. We have an anti-vice
crusade. Everybody is aroused. The movement
culminates in a big meeting and we adopt resolu
tions abolishing vice. But vice is n't abolished that
way."

Correspondence on the subject followed, and De
cember 28, 1918, he wtote this letter to the member
of the staff who had been talking with him:

INTRODUCTION xlvii

In substance, or, as our friends the diplomats say, in
principle, I am in hearty accord with you. But do you really
think we ought to guarantee to stand with France and Italy
in all future continental wars? It's a pretty big guarantee
and I don't know whether it would be made good. Indeed, I
don't know whether it ought to be made good. I am most
heartily with France and England now, but I certainly would
not have been with France fifty years ago or with England
sixty years ago, and our clear duty to antagonize Germany
has slowly become apparent during the last thirty or forty
years. Remember that you are freer to write unsigned edi
torials than I am when I use my signature. If you propose a
little more than can be carried out, no harm comes, but if I
do so it may hamper me for years. However, I will do my
best to write you such an article as you suggest; and then
probably one on what I regard as infinitely more important,
namely, our business to prepare for our own self-defense.

As for Wilson having with him the bulk of the people who
are taken in by this name [The League of Nations], I attach
less importance to this than you do. He is a conscienceless
rhetorician and he will always get the well-meaning, foolish
creatures who are misled by names. At present anything
he says about the World League is in the domain of empty
and windy eloquence. The important point will be reached
when he has to make definite the thing for which he stands.

The article written in response to the promise in
this letter was Colonel Roosevelt's last contribution
to The Star. It was dictated at his home at Oyster
Bay, January 3, which was Friday. His secretary
expected to take it to him for correction the following
Monday. Instead an early call on the telephone that
morning told of his passing away in his sleep.

RALPH STOUT

ROOSEVELT
IN THE KANSAS CITY STAR

DR. FITZSIMONS'S DEATH1
SEPTEMBER 17, 1917

THE first name on the casualty list of the American
army in France is that of Dr. William T. Fitzsimons,
of Kansas City, killed in a German air raid on our
hospitals. Dr. Fitzsimons had already served for
some time in a French hospital. As soon as this Na
tion went to war he volunteered for service abroad.

There is sometimes a symbolic significance in the
first death in a war. It is so in this case. To the
mother he leaves, the personal grief must in some
degree be relieved by the pride in the fine and gallant
life which has been crowned by the great sacrifice.
We, his fellow countrymen, share this pride and
sympathize with this sorrow. But his death should
cause us more than pride or sorrow; for in striking
fashion it illustrates the two lessons this war should
especially teach us — German brutality and Amer
ican unpreparedness.

The first lesson is the horror of Germany's calcu
lated brutality. As part of her deliberate policy of

1 Although Colonel Roosevelt did not begin his regular contribu
tions to The Star until October I, the death of Dr. W. T. Fitzsimons,
of Kansas City, moved him to send this article.

:SH ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

frightfulness she has carried on a systematic cam
paign of murder against hospitals and hospital ships.
The first American in our army to die was killed in
one of these typical raids. We should feel stern
indignation against Germany for the brutality of
which this was merely one among innumerable in
stances. But we should feel even sterner indignation
towards — and fathomless contempt for — the base
or unthinking folly of those Americans who aid and
abet the authors of such foul wickedness; and these
include all men and women who in any way apolo
gize for or uphold Germany, who assail any of our
allies, who oppose our taking active part in the war,
or who desire an inconclusive peace.

The second lesson is our unpreparedness. We are
in the eighth month since Germany went to war
against us; and we are still only at the receiving
end of the game. We have not in France a single
man on the fighting line. The first American killed
was a doctor. No German soldier is yet in jeopardy
from anything we have done.

The military work we are now doing is work of
preparation. It should have been done just three
years ago. Nine tenths of wisdom is being wise in
time.

BLOOD, IRON, AND GOLD

SEPTEMBER 23, 1917

BISMARCK announced that his policy for Germany
was one of blood and iron. The men who now guide,

latic cam-
pital ships,
is killed in
feel stern
-utality of
lerable in-
idignation
- the base
10 aid and
and these
/ay apolo-
my of our
n the war,

3. We are
nt to war
receiving
e a single
can killed
t jeopardy

s work of
just three
ig wise in

Germany
LOW guide,

BLOOD, IRON, AND GOLD 3

and for some decades have guided, German inter
national policy have added gold as the third weapon
in Germany's armory.

To a policy based on callous disregard of death and
suffering, and the brutal use of force, they have
added the habitual and extensive employment of
corruption as a means for weakening their foes and
bending other nations to their service.

The Administration at Washington recently made
public the proof that Ambassador Bernstorff, on
behalf of the German Government, was, up to the
very last moment of his stay, engaged in efforts to
bribe with German money American organizations
or individuals who could be used to further Ger
many's purpose by protesting against war, demand
ing peace at any price, opposing the measures
necessary for war, denouncing the Allied nations,
praising unpreparedness, or by some other of the
methods habitual with pro-German Senators, Con
gressmen, editors, heads of peace societies and the
like.

No well-informed man was surprised at the revela
tion. Every reasonably well-informed man, who has
known about matters at Washington, has known
that for nearly three years German money and gov
ernmental power has been used for the corruption of
American newspapers and pacifist organizations and
for the pay of German, and the bribery of native,
scoundrels to wreck our industries with dynamite
and in all ways debauch our political life. The Gov
ernment, from the highest official down, knew all

4 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

these facts over two years ago. The New York
World published the names of some of the editors
and other individuals who had received money, and
the amounts received. The Austrian Ambassador,
Dumba, and two of the German attaches, Boy-Ed
and Von Papen, were dismissed for inspiring and
countenancing the intrigues. It was absolutely im
possible that what they did was not ordered and
supervised by Bernstorff, under the direction of the
Berlin Government. It was deeply to our discredit
that we did not then show the courage and manliness
to break at once with Germany, instead of hiding
our heads in the sand so as to avoid seeing the guilt
of the German Government, and punishing the
minor instruments of wrongdoing who, under no con
ceivable circumstances, would or could have acted
save as their superiors bade them act. Germany has
hitherto been able to do but little against us with
blood and iron; gold has been her weapon, and her
agents have been the foes of our own household.

Every man in this country who is now playing the
pro-German game should be made to feel that he
must overcome a presumption of guilty motive.
There are misguided pro-Germans who are unin
fluenced by corrupt motives, just as there were in
the Civil War copperheads who were merely mis
guided and not conscious wrongdoers. But these
men are in mighty unpleasant company!

The pacifist, the man who wishes a peace without
victory, the supporter of Senator La Follette or
Senator Stone, the man who in any way now aids

GHOST DANCE OF THE SHADOW HUNS 5

Germany, may be honest; but he stands cheek by
jowl with hired traitors, and he is serving the cause
of the malignant and unscrupulous enemies of his
country.

THE GHOST DANCE OF THE SHADOW

HUNS
OCTOBER i, 1917

TEN days ago a ghost dance was held in St. Paul
under the auspices of the Non-Partisan League, with
Senator La Follette as the star performer. We have
the authority of the German Kaiser for the use of the
word Hun in a descriptive sense, as representing the
ideal to which he wished his soldiers in their actions
to approximate. It is therefore fair to use the word
descriptively as a substitute for the German in this
war. It is also fair to use it descriptively of the
German sympathizer in this country, of the man who
aids and abets Germany by condoning the German
offenses against us, by seeking to raise class division
in this country, with, of course, the attendant benefit
to Germany; by screaming against the war, or in
favor of an inconclusive peace; or by belittling or
sneering at or declaring inopportune the effort to
arouse the spirit of Americanism. The Americans
who thus serve Germany deserve the title of Shadow
Huns.

It was to me a matter of sincere regret to have the
Non-Partisan League play the part it did at St. Paul

6 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

in connection with the meeting which Senator La
Follette addressed. They held what was in effect a
disloyalty day festival. When the Non-Partisan
League movement was first started, I was inclined
to hail it, because I am exceedingly anxious to do
everything in my power to grapple with and remedy
every injustice or wrong or mere failure to give ample
opportunity to the farmer. With most of the
avowed objects and with some of the methods of the
Non-Partisan League I was in entire sympathy, al
though there were certain things it did which I felt
should be condemned, and certain ways of achieving
its objects which I believed to be mischievous. But
when the League, on the disloyalty day in question,
ranged itself on the side of the allies of Germany and
the enemies of this country, it became necessary for
every loyal American severely to condemn it. Mor
ally, although doubtless not legally, it thereby came
perilously near ranging itself beside the I.W.W., the
German-American Alliance, and the German Social
ist party machine in America.

When I spoke in Minneapolis three men spoke
from the same platform with me. One was that fine
and loyal American, Governor Burnquist, of Swed
ish ancestry. One was a blacksmith, born in Sweden,
a former member of the Socialist party, who left the
party within the last six months when he became
convinced that it was the tool or ally of German
autocracy. The third was another working-man, of
German birth.

At the meeting in Wisconsin I was on the platform

GHOST DANCE OF THE SHADOW HUNS 7

with the Mayor of Racine, an American citizen of
German birth. My companions throughout the trip
were Judge Harry Olson, of Swedish parentage, and
Mr. Otto Butz, of German parentage, both of whom
represent that kind of Americanism to which we all
must subscribe if we are to be good Americans.

The Americanism of all these men is the American
ism I profess, and it is the exact antithesis of the
attitude of the Shadow Huns, who, under the lead of
native-born Americans like Messrs. La Follette and
Townley, by their utterances, stir dissensions among
our own people and weaken us in the prosecution of
the war.

The two working-men of whom I speak, the man
born in Sweden and the man born in Germany, spoke
with rugged emphasis of their devotion to this
country, and of their sense of the duty of every man
fit to be called an American in this crisis. They
emphasized the fact that Germany's social system
was based upon the duty of the average man to
cringe before the insolence of his superiors and his
right himself to behave with insolence to his in
feriors. It is for this system of cringing abasement
before the powerful, and of brutal insolence to the
weak for which the Shadow Huns in this country
stand when they directly or indirectly talk against
our Government for going to war or talk against any
step which it takes for the efficient waging of the
war; and, above all, when they directly or indirectly
apologize for or champion Germany.

It is the duty of every American citizen fearlessly,

8 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

but truthfully, to criticize not only his Government
but his people, for wrongdoing, or for failure to do
what is right. It is his duty to obey the injunction
of President Wilson by insisting upon pitiless pub
licity of inefficiency, of subordination of public to
private considerations, or of any other form of gov
ernmental failure to perform duty. Such criticism
is absolutely indispensable if we are to do our duty
in this war, and if we are to adopt a permanent
policy of preparedness which will make this Nation
safe. But the men who oppose the war; who fail to
support the Government in every measure which
really tends to the efficient prosecution of the war;
and above all who in any shape or way champion the
cause and the actions of Germany, show themselves
to be the Huns within our own gates and the allies
of the men whom our sons and brothers are crossing
the ocean to fight.

I do not admire these Shadow Huns. But least
of all do I admire those among them, whether
Senators, Congressmen, or public officials of any
other kind who, although on Uncle Sam's pay-roll,
nevertheless seek to stab Uncle Sam in the back.

SAM WELLER AND MR. SNODGRASS
OCTOBER 2, 1917

READERS of " Pickwick," if such there still be, will
recall the time when Mr. Pickwick was arrested and
some of his followers resisted arrest. Sam Weller

SAM WELLER AND MR. SNODGRASS 9

made no boasts; but he spoiled the looks of various
opponents. Mr. Snodgrass began ostentatiously to
take off his coat, announcing in a loud voice that he
was going to begin. But he gave no further trouble.

Over eight months have elapsed since Germany
went to war with us, and we severed relations with
Germany as the first move in our sixty days' stern
foremost drift into, not going to, war, but admitting
that we were already at war. During those eight
months we have paid the penalty for our criminally
complete failure to prepare during the previous
three years by not having yet to our credit one single
piece of completed achievement. The Administra
tion has unwisely striven to cover this past failure
to prepare, and present failure to achieve, by occa
sional grandiloquent pronunciamentos as to the
wonderful things we are going to do in the future;
and usually the language used is designed to con
vince ignorant people that these things have already
been done.

One day it is announced that we have discovered
an infallible remedy against submarine attacks; and
the next day it is announced that the toll by sub
marines is heavier than during any previous month.
We read that the British drive is successful, but stub
bornly resisted; that some thousands of prisoners
have been taken; and that the losses have been
terribly heavy. We read at the same time that we
are going to have an immense army of aircraft —
some time next spring. And actually there is less
boasting over the former statement than over the

io ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

latter! We read of the valor and suffering of the
French in some heroic assault; and the Administra
tion proudly announces that, after eight months, the
drafted men are beginning to assemble in their camps
- and omits to mention that they have neither guns
no'r uniforms, are short of blankets and sweaters.

So far the Sam Wellers who have done things are
our allies. Uncle Sam is still complacently engaged
in taking off his coat, like Mr. Snodgrass. Under
such circumstances it is unwise for him to announce
overloudly what he is going to do when at last he
begins. Let him wait until he has done it; and
meanwhile bend all his energies to doing it, and doing
it soon. Brag is a good dog. But Holdfast is a
better.

BROOMSTICK PREPAREDNESS

OCTOBER 4, 1917

AT present we Americans have two prime duties.

The first is to make the best of actual conditions;
to prepare our army, navy, merchant marine, air
service, munition plants, agriculture, food conserva
tion, and everything else as speedily as possible,
so as to fight this war to a completely victorious
conclusion.

The second is not to fool ourselves, but to face
the fact of our complete and lamentable unprepared-
ness. And to inaugurate a policy of permanent pre
paredness which will prevent our ever again being
caught in such a humiliating condition.

BROOMSTICK PREPAREDNESS n

The men of the national guard and of the drafted
army are of admirable type. I do not believe that
any other great nation can produce quite their equals
on such a scale as we can; the zeal, energy, and
adaptable intelligence with which they are doing all
they can in the various camps must be a matter of
pride for all Americans. There is all the more reason
why such first-class material should be given a first-
class chance for speedy and efficient action. It has
not been given that chance. The steps we as a nation
are now taking ought to have been taken three years
ago. Failure to take them then has meant broom
stick preparedness now. Failure to take them as a
permanent policy now means broomstick prepared-*
ness in some future vital crisis when we may not
have allies willing and able to protect us while we
slowly prepare to meet the enemy.

The Ordnance Bureau of the War Department
admits that we have not rifles for our national army,
but attempts to excuse matters by saying that it is
of no consequence because we shall have rifles a few
months hence when our men are ready to go abroad.
The admission is correct. The excuse is not. Even
for training, it is better to arm infantrymen each
with the weapon he is to use rather than to give each
man a broomstick or to give every four men an
antiquated rifle which cannot be used in service, and
most of our artillery regiments at present either have
no guns or wooden guns or, in rather rare cases, old-
style guns which cannot be matched against any
present-day artillery. Moreover, and this is the vital

12 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

point, we now have the time to prepare only because
the English and French fleets and armies protect us.
Eight months have passed since Germany openly
went to war with us. As yet we have not rifles for
our infantry. As yet we have not guns for our artil
lery. It will be at least a year after we were dragged
into the war before our army will have received the
weapons with which we are to wage the war.

This is broomstick preparedness, and there is not
the slightest use in trying to justify or excuse broom
stick preparedness.

THE BONDHOLDERS AND THE PEOPLE

OCTOBER 7, 1917

NOT many years ago one of the favorite cries of
those who wished to exploit for their own advantage
the often justifiable popular unrest and discontent
was that " the people were oppressed in the interest
of the bondholders." The more ardent souls of this
type wished to repudiate the national debt, to " wipe
it out as with a sponge," in order to remove the
" oppression." The bondholders were always held up
as greedy creatures who had obtained an unfair
advantage of the people as a whole.

Well, the Liberty Loan now offers the chance to
make the people and the bondholders interchange
able terms. The bonds are issued in such a way that
the farmer and the wage-worker have exactly the
same chance as the banker to purchase and hold as

FACTORIES OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP 13

many or as few as they wish. No matter how small a
man's means, he can get some part of a bond if he
wishes. The Government and the big financiers are
doing all they can to make the sale as widely dis
tributed as possible. Some bankers are serving
without pay in the effort to put all the facts before
the people as a whole, and 30 make the loan in very
truth a people's loan. It rests with the people them
selves to decide whether it shall be such.

The Government must have the money. It is a
patriotic duty to purchase the bonds. And they offer
an absolutely safe investment. The money invested
is invested on the best security in the world — that
of the United States; of the American Nation itself.
The money cannot be lost unless the United States
is destroyed, and in that case we would all of us be
smashed anyhow, so that it would not make any
difference. The people can, if they choose, now
make themselves the bondholders. If they do not so
choose, and if they force Wall Street to become the
largest purchaser of the bonds, which must be bought
somehow, then they will have no right in the future
to grumble about the bondholders as a special class.
We can now, all of us, join that class if we wish.

FACTORIES OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP
OCTOBER 10, 1917

THE training camps for the drafted men of the na
tional army are huge factories for turning out first-
class American citizens. Not only are they fitting

I4 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

our people for war; they are fitting them for the
work of peace. They are making patriotism, love of
country, devotion to the flag, and a sense of duty to
others living facts, instead of unreal phrases. The
public schools are laboratories of Americanism for
our children; the training camps are laboratories of
Americanism for our young men.

I have just seen a party of drafted men from the
East Side of New York City start for Camp Upton
with a band playing, an American flag flying. And
two of their number in front, one dressed as Uncle
Sam, and the other as the Kaiser, dragged along in
manacles. There is no fifty-fifty Americanism in
men with such spirit. A captain at this camp, a
Plattsburg man, told me that his company of East
Side New Yorkers showed all the intelligence and the
zealous desire to learn which the fine young college
graduates at Plattsburg have shown. Another cap
tain told me that one of his men, a young Jew, had
come to him and said that at first the East Siders had
hated coming, not knowing what was ahead of them,
but that now they felt that they were in a University
of American Citizenship. A surgeon in the camp
told me that men also, proved physically lacking after
a week's trial, were in most cases bitterly chagrined
at being sent away. A colonel from a Southern camp
has reported that already his country boys from the
remote farms are straightening and broadening mor
ally, mentally, and physically, and that the improve
ment is really incalculable. From every camp we
hear of the eagerness with which the men are doing

FACTORIES OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP 15

their duty, of their resourcefulness and of the real
patriotism which is being rapidly learned. All this
means not merely good soldiers in war, but good
citizens in peace; it means an immense growth in
the spirit of Americanism.

The young men are learning to be efficient, alert,
self- respectful and respectful of others; they are
learning to scorn laziness, slackness, and cowardice.
All are serving on a precise equality of privilege and
of duty and are judged each only on his merits. The
sons of the foreign-born learn that they are exactly
as good Americans as any one else, and when they
return to their home their families will learn it, too.

Let all good Americans insist that now, without
delay, we make this state of affairs our permanent
national policy by law. We have built the camp, we
have encountered the failures to provide army uni
forms and blankets and all the other exasperating
delays which are inevitable when a nation like ours
has foolishly trusted to broomstick preparedness.
We shall avoid all these things for the future if we
continue these camps, as permanent features of the
life of all our young men, and change the selective
draft unto a system of universal obligatory military
training for all our young men of nineteen and
twenty, it being understood that they are not to
go to war until they are twenty-one. We are now
suffering, and the whole world is now suffering, from
the effects of our broomstick preparedness. Let us
do away with broomstick preparedness for the future
and substitute real preparedness.

16 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

•
PILLAR-OF-SALT CITIZENSHIP

OCTOBER 12, 1917

WHEN Lot's wife was journeying to safety, she could
not resist looking back to the land she had left and
was thereupon turned to a pillar of salt. The men
from the Old World who, instead of adopting an
attitude of hearty and exclusive loyalty to their
land, try also to look backward to their old countries,
become pillars-of-salt citizens, who are not merely
useless, but mischievous members of our common
wealth.

The dispatches of the German Government, just
published by the State Department, give us an
illuminating glimpse, not only of German methods
and of German conduct towards this country, but
also of certain phases of our own citizenship. The
German Government proposed to use this country
as a basis of operations for wrecking the Canadian
railway. It also proposed to use and pay its agents
and certain of our citizens for " sabotage in every
kind of American factory for supplying munitions of
war," and for " a vigorous campaign to secure a
majority in both houses favorable to Germany."
The German staff, in issuing these directions and in
naming certain American citizens as tools for the
treacherous work, insisted that the embassy should
not be compromised and that " similar precautions
must be taken in regard to Irish pro-German
propaganda."

PILLAR-OF-SALT CITIZENSHIP 17

Good citizens who have been misled by false
counsel must now clearly see that the campaign of
dynamite against our industries, with the attendant
wreckage and murder, was a deliberate act of secret
war by the German Government; that the attempt
by Americans to secure an embargo on sending muni
tions to the Allies was an effort to aid Germany in
thus making war on the United States; that the
Irish pro-German movement in this country was
financed and guided from Germany, and that our
citizens, whether of foreign or native birth, whether
of native American or German or Irish origin, who
took part in pushing these movements, were doing
substantially the same kind of work that Benedict
Arnold once tried to do.

Some of them were doubtless paid, others were
doubtless not paid, but the paid and the unpaid
alike were serving Germany against the United
States. These matters are now all of public record.
The excuse of ignorance can no longer avail any one.
Henceforth the citizens of German or Irish birth
who take part in such activities as those of most of
the German-American alliances and the like, are at
best standing in the position of pillar-of-salt citi
zenship; at worst they, and above all their native
American associates, who now indulge in pacifist
movements or demand a peace without overwhelm
ing victory or ask for a referendum on the war, or
in any other way serve the brutal and conscience
less ambition of Germany, stand unpleasantly near
the lonely eminence occupied by Benedict Arnold.

18 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

BROOMSTICK APOLOGISTS
OCTOBER 14, 1917

THE chief of the Ordnance Bureau of the army, in
commenting on the shortage of rifles, has said that
it is of no consequence, because " every soldier will
be supplied a rifle when he starts for France."

Of course he will, otherwise he cannot start. One
of the leading papers of New York backs up the
statement by saying that the " drilling in the camps
without rifles is ended now" and that "General
Crozier delayed the work so as to get rifles with the
same ammunition our allies are using."

Neither statement is correct. The last is the re
verse of truth. On October 2 in one camp there were
still only one hundred rifles for twenty thousand
men and other camps were scarcely better off, and
the delay in getting rifles during the last eight
months has been due primarily to the refusal of the
Ordnance Department to get rifles using the am
munition of our allies.

If during the two years preceding our entry into
the war the Government factories had been run full
speed, we would have had over two million of
Springfield rifles instead of under one million. Our
shortage was due solely to our policy of dawdle. Our
factories produced a mere dribble of rifles and no big
field guns until the inevitable happened.

War came. Having no rifles of our own for the
new army, the War Department decided to adopt

BROOMSTICK APOLOGISTS 19

the English rifle, the Enfield, which was being built
in this country at the rate of nearly nine thousand
a day in private plants, and by speeding them up the
number could have been immediately increased
to fourteen thousand a day. But the authorities
insisted that the Enfields should be changed to take
our ammunition, and that certain parts should be
standardized and made interchangeable. As regards
this excuse, it is sufficient to point out that in the
first place it was a very grave error, while making
the parts of our Enfields interchangeable, at the
same time to make their ammunition not inter
changeable with that of the British Enfields, for the
number of Springfields on hand was negligible com
pared to the millions of rifles we would ultimately
need, and in the second place the delay even for this
purpose was wholly inexcusable. The German sub
marine note came on January 31. An alert War De
partment would have had its rifle programme mi
nutely mapped out within two weeks. The delay in
furnishing final specifications to the factories was
such that they could not begin on the complete rifle
until the latter part of August. Six months is a
" perfectly endurable delay " only if we are content
to accept the speed standards in war of Tiglath-
Pileser and Pharaoh Necho. The United States must
learn to adopt the war speed standards of the Twen
tieth Century, A.D., instead of those of the Seventh
Century, B.C.

If in April we had been ready to proceed with the
Enfield rifle, we would now have about two million

20 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

of the new rifles instead of about one-fiftieth of that
number. General Crozier says that we have only
had to wait " two or three months — a perfectly en
durable delay." Surely if there is anything this war
teaches it is the vital importance of time. Two or
three months' waiting in order to get a rifle which
does not carry the ammunition of our allies repre
sents not merely an undesirable delay but grave
unwisdom.

General Crowder handled the draft to perfection
because he appreciated that the difference between
sending a telegram at 5 or at 4:45 might be of mo
mentous consequence. General Crozier has bungled
the rifle situation because of the attitude which
makes him regard two or three months as " a per
fectly endurable delay."

For two years and a half before entering the war
we relied upon broomstick preparedness. For the
first eight months of the war we have followed the
same policy as regards the vital matter of rifles for
our troops.

THE LIBERTY LOAN AND THE
PRO-GERMANS

OCTOBER 16, 1917

MR. VICTOR BERGER, the Socialist leader of Mil
waukee, is reported in the press as sneering at the
Liberty bonds, berating the Administration for, as
he says, appointing thirty-three wealthy capitalists
on the National Council of Defense, and in effect

LIBERTY LOAN AND THE PRO-GERMANS 21

seeming to persuade his hearers that they ought, at
this crisis of foreign war, to be hostile to those of
their countrymen who are " capitalists " instead of
the Kaiser.

This is natural. The Socialist party machine in
this country is run by Germans. Socialists, who
were sincerely desirous of social betterment and who
were sincere in this hatred of tyranny and wrong
doing, have left the Socialist party. Those who re
main in it have turned it into a mere tool of the
brutal militaristic autocracy which now threatens
the world. These men are completely dominated by
the Germans, and German Socialists in America
have shown in this crisis that they are Germans
first, Socialists a long way second, and not Ameri
cans at all. In fact, they are venomously hostile
to the country in which they dwell and claim citizen
ship, and are eagerly ready to sacrifice Socialism
itself to the interests of the Germany of the Hohen-
zollerns. They stand well to the front among the
Shadow Huns who, within our gates, are the allies of
the Huns without our gates.

While in Wisconsin I was told that the German-
American Alliance, in its efforts to persuade American
citizens to betray their citizenship in the interests
of Germany, had relatively as many adherents
among the Socialists as among the two great parties.

When the Socialists under such leadership oppose
or sneer at the Liberty Loan, it is proof positive that
all patriotic citizens should buy Liberty bonds up to
the limit of their ability. The Socialists attack the

22 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

Liberty Loan in order to hurt America and help
Germany. The domination of " American capital
ism " is a mere blind to obscure the service they are
trying to render to the capitalists and militarists of
Germany.

For the composition of the National Council of
Defense, I am sorry that more labor men and farmers
are not on it, but I wish they could be put on in addi
tion to, not as substitutes for, the men of means who
are on it, for these men of means, taken as a whole,
have at much cost to themselves rendered devoted
and invaluable service to the Nation. Their absence
would be a general calamity to America and a great
aid to Germany, and all true lovers of America
should recognize this fact. I know some of these
men personally, and those whom I know have sacri
ficed time, effort, and money in order to be of help to
the Nation at this juncture. In fact, I have never
known more devoted public service than that they
rendered at this crisis.

It is unpatriotic at this time to attack good Ameri
cans because they have capital and are trying to
make this capital of service in the war. Capital is
necessary to business and industry, and in this war
industrial efficiency is almost as necessary as military
skill. The factories at home are almost as important
as the armies in the field. Wise war taxation of
capital and profits is eminently necessary, but it
must not go to an extent that will interfere with pro
duction and the forward movement of business, or
widespread calamity would result.

A DIFFICULT QUESTION TO ANSWER 23

We are a great Nation, engaged in a stupendous
war. Let us use dollars as we use the loaded shells,
and each can do its best work only under the leader
ship of the ablest man: the business man in one case,
the military man in the other. By all means let the
people be masters of the capital of the country at
the present time. The surest way to do this is for
the people themselves to buy the Liberty bonds
and not leave them to Wall Street. They are the
one absolutely safe investment, both for men of
small means and men of large means.

A DIFFICULT QUESTION TO ANSWER

OCTOBER 18, 1917

A CORRESPONDENT in Pueblo, Colorado, writes me
as follows:

By what logic are we "at peace" with Austria, when she
is furnishing troops or artillery to Germany to fight and kill
our soldiers on the western front? The same question might
apply to Turkey. Remember, too, that we are furnishing
money and supplies to Italy, our ally, in her struggle with
Austria. The Western folks are looking to you to answer
hard questions of this sort for us which we don't understand.

Neither I nor any one else can satisfactorily an
swer the question. A limited liability war in which
we fight Germany ourselves and pay money to Italy
and Russia to enable them to fight Austria and
Turkey, with whom we are at peace, savors of sharp
practice and not of statesmanship. It is a good rule

24 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

either to stay out of war or to go into it, but not to
try to do both things at once.

Moreover, this matter squarely tests our sincerity
when we announced that we went to war to make
the world safe for democracy. The phrase must have
been used in a somewhat oratorical fashion, anyhow,
because we have ourselves within the last year or
two made the world entirely unsafe for democracy
in the two small and weak republics of Haiti and
San Domingo. Therefore, the phrase must have
meant that we intended to make the world safe for
well-behaved nations, great or small, to enjoy their
liberty and govern themselves as they wished. If it
did not mean this, the phrase was much worse than
an empty flourish, for it was deliberately deceitful.
If it did mean this, then we are recreant to our
promise unless we at once go to war with Austria and
Turkey.

Both these nations are racial conglomerates, in
which one or two nationalities tyrannize over other
subject nationalities. The world will not and can
not be safe for democracy until the Armenians, the
Syrian Christians, and the Arabs are freed from
Turkish tyranny, and until the Poles, Bohemians,
and Southern Slavs, now under the Austrian yoke,
are made into separate, independent nations, and
until the Italians of Southwest Austria are restored
to Italy and the Rumanians of Eastern Hungary to
Rumania.

Unless we propose in good faith to carry out this
programme, we have been guilty of a rhetorical sham

NOW HELP THE LIBERTY LOAN 25

when we pledged ourselves to make the world safe
for democracy. The United States must not make
promises which it has no intention of performing.
We are breaking this promise and incidentally are
acting absurdly every day that we continue at
nominal peace with Germany's fellow tyrants and
subject allies, Austria and Turkey.

NOW HELP THE LIBERTY LOAN
OCTOBER 20, 1917

THE concrete services to the United States which
every decent American not fortunate enough to be a
soldier can now render, is to buy as many Liberty
bonds as he can afford.

The Treasury Department has set forth in the
public press the facts about the campaign which the
pro-Germans in the United States are waging
against the Liberty Loan. The campaign is being
waged by trying to prevent banks from handling
the Liberty Loan, and by the publication in certain
newspapers of articles tending to discourage people
from investing in the bonds. Senator La Follette's
speeches, which are to the same effect, are also being
circulated with a view to check popular subscrip
tions. Senator La Follette, by the way, represents
exactly the type which tries to prevent the people
from owning the bonds and, nevertheless, will in
the future probably rail at the purchasers of the
bonds as having, somehow or other, obtained an
improper and excessive profit.

26 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

Inasmuch as the enemies of the Liberty Loan are
of this type, all patriotic Americans should strain
every nerve to make the sale a success. Moreover,
this happens to be one of those rare cases where the
performance of a patriotic duty is a first-class finan
cial investment. Th'e patriot is rendering a great
service to the Nation while he is also making a
capital investment for himself. If the people do
not take the bonds, they will be taken by the big
capitalists. The people have the first call, and while
it is desirable in the interest of everybody to make
this a people's loan, it is more desirable from the
standpoint of the people themselves. The invest
ment is absolutely safe. The men and women who
fail to take advantage of it are not standing by the
country and they are not standing by their own
interests. Every man, from the day laborer to the
bank president, should, according to his means,
invest in the Liberty bonds.

A SQUARE DEAL FOR THE

TRAINING CAMPS

OCTOBER 21, 1917

THE Playgrounds and Recreation Association of
America has undertaken a capital work in pushing
the War Camp Community Committee, of which
Mr. John N. Willys, of Toledo, is chairman. The
War Camp Committee work for Missouri, Kansas,
Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Colorado has made
Mr. I. R. Kirkwood chairman, and has begun an

A SQUARE DEAL FOR TRAINING CAMPS 27

active drive to get the three-quarter of a million
dollars allotted to this district out of the total of
four million to be raised in the country.

The movement should receive the heartiest back
ing. It represents much more even than the very
important work of providing amusements for the
hundreds of thousands of enlisted men in the various
camps, for it also has to deal with the moral and
sanitary surroundings, not only in camps, but in
the neighboring towns and cities. In former wars
the number of men incapacitated by diseases con
tracted in the camps often surpassed the number in
capacitated by the sickness due to the hardships and
exposure at the front. This was because of lax super
vision of the neighborhood moral and sanitary con
ditions, and also from failure to instruct the soldiers
that it is a shameful and unsoldierly thing to expose
themselves to disease due to indulgence in vice.

The committee is working not only in the interests
of national morality and decency. It is also working
in the interest of military efficiency, for it will save
scores of thousands of soldiers from being shamefully
incapacitated before reaching the front, and the
gain to the Nation from the economical as well as
the moral standpoint, after the war, will be very
great.

The work of the committee will be carried on
outside the camps in the adjacent communities
acting in cooperation with churches, clubs, and or
ganizations of public-spirited men and women. It
will be wholly different from the work inside the

28 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

camps, which is done by the Y.M.C.A., the Knights
of Columbus, the Y.M.H.A., and similar bodies.
In many places the local authorities already have
done much work along the lines sketched by the
national committee, and wherever this is the case,
the national committee will surely aid the local
bodies.

All good and patriotic men and women should
heartily back this work to keep Uncle Sam's soldiers
clean, decent, and self-respecting; to make them
better citizens and more formidable fighting men.

THE PASSING OF THE CRIPPLE

OCTOBER 23, 1917

IF men are alert, resolute, and energetic, they can
usually secure some compensation from any ca
lamity. This dreadful war, attended by the killing
and crippling of men on a scale hitherto unknown,
has brought as a compensation a determined move
to do away with the cripple; that is, to cease the
mere effort to keep a crippled man alive and, instead,
to endeavor by reconstructive surgery to restore him
to himself and to the community as an economic
asset.

Surgeon-General Gorgas and his associates have
worked out, and are ready practically to test, an or
ganized system under which any seemingly crippled
man is to be kept under the guidance of the medical
branch of the army until either the usefulness of the

THE PASSING OF THE CRIPPLE 29

damaged part has been restored or else until he has
been trained in other ways so as to enable him
measurably to overcome the handicap. In almost
every case something will be done to make the
cripple less of a burden to himself and others, and
in most cases, the army medical service confidently
believes, the cripple will once more become a useful
and therefore a happy citizen. In all our special
hospitals that are now being planned, the curative
workshop is part of the plant. The effort is to be
not only for the physical development and physical
reeducation of the wounded part, but also for any
intellectual training necessary to produce new forms
of effective ability which will offset any loss in
physical ability. The aim is not merely to save the
life of, and then turn loose, a crippled pensioner
who can be little but a burden on the community;
it is to take care of the wounded man until the very
best of which he is capable has been developed, so
that when once more in the outside world he will
be a real asset to the Nation. This is a fine thing for
the Nation, and is of incalculable consequence from
the standpoint of the self-respect and happiness of
the man.

This represents the complete reversal of the old
point of view, which was that the cripple was turned
loose with a pension for less than what if sound in
body he would have earned, and a burden on
the community. The purpose of Surgeon-General
Gorgas and his associates is that the Government
shall stand behind the man and invest money in him

30 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

so as to develop all his latent resources, fitting him
to make good as a citizen and expecting him thus to
make good. There will be, where necessary, a money
compensation for the injury, but the great compen
sation will be the return to useful life of the man
himself.

The far-reaching effect of such a policy is evident.
The purpose is to insist that every man, no matter
how maimed, shall be made of further use in the
world. If once the army acts on this theory, the
great industries will follow suit. The cripple, in
the sense of being a helpless or useless cripple, will
largely be eliminated, and out of this war will have
come another step in the slow march of mankind
towards a better and more just life.

THE PEACE OF COMPLETE VICTORY
OCTOBER 23, 1917

It is stated in a press report from Washington that
the Allies wish the United States to stop sending
men abroad and use its ships for food and munitions
instead, but that the Administration will not agree
to the plan, and furthermore that the Administration
is determined that there shall be no peace until Ger
many is completely beaten. If the report is correct,
the Administration is absolutely right on both points.
As to the first point, we can well understand, in
view of the steady U-boat campaign, how greatly
the Allies desire food and munitions, and we regret

THE PEACE OF COMPLETE VICTORY 31

with bitter shame the folly of our Government in
dawdling and delaying for six vital months after the
German note of January 31 last before seriously
beginning the work of building big, swift cargo boats.
But this cannot alter the fact that for the sake of
our honor and our future world usefulness we must
ourselves fight and not merely hire others to fight
for us. If we do not follow this course, our children's
heads will be bowed with humiliation. With proper
energy we could already have had some hundreds
of thousands of men in the firing line, and we should
send our troops over as rapidly as possible, with the
purpose to put at least two million men against the
German lines next year, an entirely possible pro
gramme if the Government will lend its energies
with a single mind to the task.

As regards the second point, every decent citizen
should make the pacifist and the home Hun realize
that agitation for a premature peace, for a peace
without victory, is seditious. Shame on every man,
and above all on every public servant and every
leader of public opinion, who endeavors to weaken
the determination of America to see the war through
and at all costs secure an overwhelming triumph for
the principles for which we contend. If Germany is
left unbeaten, the Western Hemisphere will stand in
cowering dread of an assault by Germany's ruthless
and barbarous autocracy. The liberties of the free
peoples of the world are at stake.

We must now fight with all our might on European
soil beside our allies or else fear the day when we

32 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

will have to fight without allies beside our burning
homes. While this war lasts, the cause of our allies
is our cause, their defeat would be our defeat, and
whoever assails them or defends Germany is a traitor
to the United States. There must be no negotiated
peace. Belgium is entitled to an enormous in
demnity and France to annexation of Alsace and
Lorraine. By her marine murders and her shore
raids and her utter treachery and abominable
cruelty, Germany has made herself the outlaw
among nations, and with her we should negotiate
only through the mouths of our cannon. All who
now advocate a negotiated peace with her are seek
ing to betray civilization in the interest of brute force
and international outrage. The United States owes
her entrance into this war almost as much to the
American pacifist as to the German militarist, and
now the former is meanly eager once more to serve
the latter by securing an unjust peace. Let every
brave and patriotic American spurn the base coun
sels of the pro-Germans and pacifists, and insist that
this country, at whatever cost, fight steadfastly until
the war closes with Germany's complete overthrow.

FIGHTING WORK FOR THE MAN OF

FIGHTING AGE

OCTOBER 25, 1917

THE Y.M.C.A. is one of the most powerful agencies
for good in our military camps here at home and with
our armies abroad. It would be a veritable calamity

THE MAN OF FIGHTING AGE 33

not to have it do this work. The women and the
elderly men who have gone abroad under present
conditions are rendering a patriotic service of high
value, but every young man of fighting age who has
gone abroad for the Y.M.C.A. at this time is a posi
tive damage to the work and should be instantly
sent home. It is an ignoble thing for an able-bodied
man to be in such a position of bodily safety where
his example must naturally excite contempt and re
sentment among the men who, unlike him, are risk
ing their lives and have left their families for the sake
of a great ideal. Of course, no man of draft age
should be sent over, but this is not enough. The
draft represents merely the minimum performance
of duty. No man of age to permit his entering the
army abroad or at home should be sent over. If any
such man is not in the army, it should be either be
cause he has been turned down by the army authori
ties for physical reasons or because his work at home
either for his family or for the Government impera
tively demands his presence here. If he is able to go
abroad at all, he should go abroad in the army. The
fact that he is abroad for the Y.M.C.A. is proof
positive that he has no business to be there.

An officer in high command in France recently
wrote home a letter, which I have seen, describing
the experiences of the junior officers of his command
with some of the young able-bodied Y.M.C.A. repre
sentatives. He began by an emphatic testimony to
the admirable work the Y.M.C.A. had done and to
its great importance, and by an emphatic statement

34 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

that it had a thoroughly bad effect on the enlisted
men to see a young man of their own age engaged in
such work. He then illustrated its effect on the
young officers with whom these Y.M.C.A. men
messed, writing:

Two young Y.M.C.A. men have been at two of the bat
talion messes. They are of the age whose presence here is an
annoyance to the army because they seem to have been ex
empted from the draft. They have obtained bullet-proof jobs
and their presence here is a bad example to all the young men
in the army. Last night at one mess the officers were so dis
gusted with the Y.M.C.A., who was actually wearing a uni
form with an officer's belt on, that they began to chaff him,
telling him that they were married men and were entitled to
play safety first themselves and thought they would apply for
jobs in the Salvation Army. The Y.M.CA. had to stand for
this because he was the only unmarried man there, and it is
said that his mother persuaded him that he owed her a duty
not to go in a dangerous place. He evidently feels his duty
keenly. The other young fellow from the Y.M.C.A. was a
real man and he left the soft job and has enlisted as a private.

The Y.M.C.A. is so very useful an organization
that it is profoundly to be regretted that it should in
any way damage its usefulness. Its work with the
armies abroad should be done exclusively by women
and elderly men. No able-bodied man under forty-
five should represent the Y.M.C.A. in the war zone
or with the army camps.

WISE WOMEN AND FOOLISH WOMEN
OCTOBER 27, 1917

THERE are wise and foolish women just as there are
wise and foolish men, and in any great crisis the wel-

WISE WOMEN AND FOOLISH WOMEN 35

fare of this country depends upon the extent to
which the wise and patriotic men and the wise and
patriotic women can offset or overcome the folly of
the foolish.

The woman who bravely and cheerfully sends her
men to battle when the country calls takes her place
high on the national honor roll. She stands beside
the mothers and wives of the men of '76 and of the
men who wore the blue and the gray in the Civil
War. Where would this country now be if Wash
ington's mother had not raised her boy to be a
soldier for the right?

But the women who do not raise their boys to he
soldiers when the country needs them are unfit to
live in this republic. The women who at this time
try to dissuade their husbands or sons who are of
military age from entering the army or navy are
thoroughly unworthy citizens. The kind of affection
which shows itself by refusing to allow the boy to
face hard work when it is his duty to do so, the
mother who brings up her boy to be a worthless
idler, because she is too fond of him to see him suffer
the discomfort of hard work, and the mother who
desires her boy to play the coward or the shirk, in
time of war, are not merely foolish; they are poor
citizens. They are the real enemies of their sons, for
there can be no more dangerous enemy than the
human being, man or woman, who teaches another
human being to lose his soul in order to save his
body. The wise mother is the best of all good citi
zens and the foolish mother stands almost at the

36 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

other end of the scale. I wish every mother in the
land could read Theodosia Garrison's poem, recently
sent out by that stirring body of patriots, the Vigi
lantes. It describes the youth of twenty years, eager
to play a manly part while his mother seeks to hold
him from the post of danger and duty, and two of
the verses run:

Mother of his twenty years, who holds against his will
The eager heart, the quick blood, and bids them to be still,
What of the young untrammeled soul you seek to blunt and
kill?

You would save the body stainless and complete,

Fetters on the hands of it, shackles on the feet;

And in the crippling of them make soul and body meet.

WHY CRY OVER SPILT MILK?

OCTOBER 28, 1917

NICE, short-sighted persons, when the evil effects of
our folly in failing to prepare are pointed out, some
times ask, " Why cry over spilt milk? " The answer
is that we wish to be sure that we do not spill it
again, and, unfortunately, the nice persons who bleat
against any one who points out our shortcomings in
preparedness or who excuse and champion those
responsible for this unpreparedness, are doing all
they can to invite future disaster for the Nation.

The bleat assumes different expressions in differ
ent localities. Recently the Mayor of Abilene,
Texas, expressed his disapproval of my pointing out
that we, as a Nation, had wholly failed to prepare,

WHY CRY OVER SPILT MILK? 37

by saying that I was " a seditious conspirator who
ought to be shot dead/' and that the editor of the
newspaper publishing the article " should be tarred
and feathered." Although differing in method of ex
pression, this slightly homicidal bleat of the gentle-
souled (and doubtless entirely harmless) Mayor of
Abilene, Texas, is exactly similar in thought to the
utterances of all these sheeplike creatures who raise
quavering or incoherent protests against every
honest and patriotic man who points out the damage
done by our failure to prepare.

These persons cannot deny one fact I state. Nine
months have passed since, on January 31, Germany
sent us a note which was practically a declaration of
war. We have only just put troops in the trenches;
many of the troops of our draft army training at
home have until recently only had broomsticks, and
now only have one old Spanish War rifle for every
eight soldiers; most of the artillery regiments in
these camps either have no guns or wooden guns.
After nine months we are still wholly unable to de
fend ourselves or to render efficient military aid to
our allies, and we owe safety from invasion only to
the protection of the fleets and armies of the war
worn and weary nations to whose help we nominally
came. No man can truthfully deny these statements,
no man can seriously regard this situation as satis
factory. To try to cover up the truth by bluster and
brag and downright falsehoods may possibly deceive
ourselves, but will deceive no one else, whether
friend or foe. Is such foolish deceit worth while ?

38 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

Nine tenths of wisdom is being wise in time. We
were not wise in time. Let us learn from our past
folly future wisdom. Our first duty is to win this
war, and therefore the Shadow Hun within our gates
is our worst internal foe. Our next and equally im
portant duty is to prepare against disaster in the
future, and therefore our next worst internal foe is
the sheeplike creature who invites national disaster
for the future by bleating against the telling of the
truth in the present.

SAVE THE FOODSTUFF

OCTOBER 30, 1917

MR. HOOVER has been appointed as the man to lead
us of this Nation in the vitally important matter of
producing and saving as much food as we possibly
can in order that we can send abroad the largest
possible amount for the use of our suffering allies
and for the use of our own gallant soldiers. Mr.
Hoover's preeminent services in Belgium pointed
him out as of all the men in this country the man
most fit for the very position to which he has been
appointed. Let us give him our most hearty and
loyal support.

In this great and terrible war the slaughter, star
vation, and exhaustion are on a scale never before
known. They are nation-wide. Therefore every in
dividual of every nation engaged must do his full
part or else must be held to have failed in his duty.

SAVE THE FOODSTUFF 39

The man of fighting age must fight. The man with
especial business capacity or mechanical skill must
produce arms or equipment or ammunition. And
every man, woman, or child must help produce food
if possible, and in any event must help economize it.

Mr. Hoover has asked us during this week to de
vote ourselves to getting all our people voluntarily
to pledge themselves to certain forms of food econ
omy, — which are of great consequence from the
standpoint of sending abroad the foodstuffs needed
by our Allies and by our own troops. There are cer
tain foods which are easily transported which are
nourishing and which are peculiarly suited for the
use both of our allies and of our troops in the field.
Mr. Hoover's plan is that we shall all of us volun
tarily limit along strict lines our consumption of
these food products and replace them by other foods
which are not suitable for sending abroad, and that
we shall rigidly avoid waste. Full particulars are
given in the pamphlets sent out by Mr. Hoover
from his Washington Bureau of Food Conservation.

What Mr. Hoover asks entails not the slightest
real hardship on any of us. It merely requires each
of us to exercise a little self-control and perhaps to
make some trivial sacrifice of personal preference
in what we eat. Surely this is a very, very small
service to be rendered by us stay-at-homes in sup
port of our sons and brothers who have gone or are
going to risk their lives in battle for us and mankind.

40 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

ON THE FIRING LINE
OCTOBER 31, 1917

OUR men are now actually on the firing line, and
while, of course, they are as yet there primarily for
purposes of instruction, nevertheless, they are there.
They are at times under fire. They are at any mo
ment liable to death in upholding the honor of their
country, of your country, my reader, and of mine.

General Pershing's original division under his
direction and the direction of his lieutenants, such
as Major- General Sibert, Brigadier-General Duncan,
and their associates, has evidently been trained to a
high point of efficiency. The accounts show that the
infantry effected their entrance to the trenches with
the precision of veterans. Evidently the artillery
is being handled with similar efficiency. Apparently,
from the account, our artillerymen are using French
guns.

All Americans must feel a glow of pride as he reads
of the soldierly manner in which our American
troops have made their entry into the fire zone.
But we must not confine ourselves merely to feeling
pride in our fellow countrymen who are at the front
risking their lives in doing their duty on behalf of
all of us. We must back them up. We must support
the Government in every movement taken effi
ciently to put the strength of this Nation behind our
soldiers, and we must vigilantly insist upon the effi
ciency including the speed absolutely indispensable.

ON THE FIRING LINE 41

We must support the Liberty Loans, conserve food,
cheerfully pay taxes, and tolerate neither improper
profit-making out of the war by capitalists or
strikers, — nor slackness and malingering which in
terferes with our military efficiency by laboring men.
Every American civilian should now do his work
with the same sense of duty as is shown by the
soldiers in the field.

And now let good patriots keep in mind that the
Huns within our gates from this time on are the
allies of the Huns who are actually doing battle
against our soldiers at the front. The men who
directly or indirectly advise people not to take Lib
erty bonds, the men who clamor for an early peace,
an inconclusive or negotiated peace, the men who
condone the offenses of Germany directly or in
directly, the men who say we have not ample cause
for war against Germany, the men who attack our
allies or seek to breed dissension between them and
us, are each and every one to a greater or less degree
acting as friends of Germany and therefore as
enemies of the United States. Every patriotic
American should now clearly understand what is
really implied in the attitude taken during the last
nine months by the Stones and La Follettes, the
Hearsts and Hillquits. These men are out of place
in America. It is sincerely to be regretted that they
cannot be put where they belong — under the
Hohenzollerns.

42 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

NINE TENTHS OF WISDOM IS BEING

WISE IN TIME

NOVEMBER i, 1917

A FEW days ago I expressed in The Star the regret
and uneasiness felt by all men with knowledge of
international matters at the failure of this country to
declare war on Austria and Turkey. Various Ad
ministration, and, of course, the leading pro-Ger
man, newspapers took exception to this statement
and announced that the procedure advocated would
be unwise or improper. Since then the great defeat
of the Italian army by the Germans and Austrians
has occurred, and among the Italians there has been
much bitter criticism of our failure to help them, al
though we have now for many months been at war,
at least in theory, with Germany.

A leading Administration newspaper of high
standing, the Brooklyn Eagle, accurately states the
case as follows:

Italy's defeat is shocking and alarming. Only its unexpect
edness excuses the failure of Italy's allies, including ourselves,
to meet it. This Government cannot evade responsibility if
Italy is lost, for we have been up to the present, quite as
indifferent as the rest of the Entente to Italy's fate. Italy
suffers and is endangered by our own negative attitude. We
have loaned her money, but we are not at war with Austria,
and we have failed to give Italy such whole-hearted support
as her critical position demands. No time should be lost in
reversing this policy. Italy is fighting our battles as well as
her own. She is a valuable ally; her cause is just. No effort
should be spared to save her. There is no time to compromise
or equivocate. Our own soldiers in Europe will have to pay

WE ARE IN THIS WAR TO THE FINISH 43

in blood for every hour's delay in throwing all possible help
to Italy.

This is the exact truth. I call attention to the
fact that it is from a strong supporter of the Admin
istration and that it takes the view I have for months
been taking, and which various well-meaning but
sheeplike creatures have bleated against on the
ground that it implies criticism of the Administra
tion. I was merely advocating before the event the
course, which, after the event, all will agree ought
to have been followed. It is in this matter precisely
as it was in regard to our building ships to meet the
terrible U-boat menace. We should, with the utmost
energy and speed, have begun to build them within
a week, within a day, of the German note of January
31. Instead of this we dawdled and wrangled for
six months before seriously beginning. In the one
case as in the other foolish creatures did immense
harm by protesting against pointing out our blunders
on the ground that we must not speak of spilt milk,
whereas, of course, we can only stop future spilling
by showing where it has been spilt in the past.

Nine tenths of wisdom is being wise in time, is the
lesson as taught afresh by the Italian disaster and the
shortage of cargo ships. Let us at last profit by it.

WE ARE IN THIS WAR TO THE FINISH

NOVEMBER 2, 1917

THE disaster to our Italian ally should make every
American worth calling such awake to the real needs

44 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

of the hour and should arouse in him the inflexible
purpose to see that this war is fought through to a
victorious conclusion, no matter how long it takes,
no matter what the expense and loss may be.

Our first troops are now actually in the trenches;
American infantry and American artillerymen are
under fire; blood has been shed. Our sons and
brothers have begun the trench life of wearing
fatigue, of cold, of inconceivable hardship and ex
posure and of cruel danger. A few women at home
suffer as much. Otherwise, no civilians outside the
regions conquered by the Germans can begin to real
ize the terrible strain to which constantly increasing
numbers of our soldiers will be exposed as additional
divisions are trained for and put into the actual
fighting.

We who stay at home must back up those men in
every way. We must stand by and energetically
support every effort of the Government to add to
their efficiency and to back them up, including the
sending over of constantly increasing numbers of
soldiers to the aid of the men already there. We
must back up the loans and taxes necessary in order
to supply them with arms, munitions, equipment,
food, hospitals. We must hold to the strictest ac
countability before the bar of public opinion any
Government official responsible for needless delay,
or for shortage in shipping, clothing, or material, or
for deficient ammunition, or faulty gas-masks, or for
any other shortage which exposes our men at the
front to needless danger and hardship. We must

SINISTER ALLIES 45

make their effort and their suffering avail by highly
resolving that the whole power of this Nation, and
all its resources in men and in wealth, shall be used
to bring the peace of complete and overwhelming
triumph over Germany and over Germany's subject
allies, Austria and Turkey.

Finally, every brave and patriotic American owes
it to the men at the front to make the lash of scorn
felt by the Hearsts and La Follettes and by all others
like them. These men have given or now give aid
and comfort to Germany, and therefore show them
selves enemies to the soldiers in the American uni
form by opposing the war, or by asking for an in
conclusive peace, or by assailing the allies of the
United States, or by condoning or keeping silent
concerning the hideous atrocities which have made
the Prussianized empire of the Hohenzollerns the
arch enemy of every liberty-loving and self-respect
ing civilized nation on the face of the globe.

SINISTER ALLIES

NOVEMBER 3, 1917

THERE are well-meaning, but not overwise, persons
who bleat against any sincere and truthful effort to
make us more efficient in this war by protesting
against grave shortcomings. These worthy persons
should realize that they are acting against the in
terest of the United States and in the interest of
Germany. If they doubt this, they have only to

46 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

ponder the fact that in their attitude they stand
beside such sinister allies as German papers like
the New York Staats Zeitung and Illinois Staats
Zeitung and the various papers of Mr. Hearst.

These papers have opposed our going to war, or
have assailed our allies, or have condoned or passed
over in silence the brutal infamy of Germany. They
have opposed the Government in its actions against
Germany. In so doing they have been the enemies of
America. And they have been no less the enemies of
America when they have eagerly defended the Gov
ernment from criticism for shortcomings which im
pair our efficiency and therefore tell in favor of
Germany. Exactly as they once opposed prepared
ness, or excused the murderous sinking of the Lusi-
tania, or protested against our going to war, so they
now zealously exhibit a sham loyalty of the most
hurtful kind by denouncing honest and truthful men
because they tell the truth.

In order really to serve this country, it is nec
essary to point out the dreadful damage done by our
failure to prepare; of the evil effect of trying to train
our troops with broomsticks and wooden guns; the
worse than folly of failing to declare war on Austria
and Turkey, and the harm done by the delays, in
cluding the dawdling for six months before we began
the vitally necessary work of shipbuilding. To
cover up such shortcomings deceives no one but
ourselves. Germany knows all about them. We help
her to find out by our failure to treat her spies with
drastic severity. And the men who suffer know all

THE NEW YORK MAYORALTY ELECTION 47

about them; the artillerymen with only a wooden
cannon, or the sentry in a cotton uniform on a cold
night stands in no need of enlightenment on the
subject. When these pro-German papers with loud
professions of loyalty protest against telling our
people the truth about such matters, they are merely
serving Germany against the United States.

Loyalty to the Nation demands that we subscribe
to the Liberty Loans; that we practice food con
servation; that we ardently support sending our
soldiers abroad until we have millions of men on the
firing line; that we stand for universal obligatory
military training and service; that we heartily up
hold our allies and condemn as traitors to America
all who attack them; that we insist on prosecuting
the war to complete victory and condemn as false to
this country all who seek an inconclusive peace.
Loyalty to the Nation no less demands that we make
our people understand the lasting harm done by our
failure to prepare during the two and a half years
before the war broke out and the grave damage now
caused by needless delay, by irresolution, by the ap
pointment or retention of inefficient men, and by any
and all types of half-heartedness in waging the war.

THE NEW YORK MAYORALTY ELECTION
NOVEMBER 8, 1917

THE triumph of Tammany in New York City and
the large Socialist vote have in some quarters been
hailed as showing that New York City is for peace

48 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

at any price and that it is against the Adminis
tration. Neither statement is warranted by the
facts.

The Socialist vote was about one-fifth of the total
vote. It included most of those who wished the war
stopped at once, this number being made up of pro
fessional pacifists, of red flag Anarchists, and of poor,
ignorant people who pathetically believed that a
Socialist mayor would somehow bring peace at once.
But it also included its professional Socialists and
poor, ignorant people who did not think of the war,
but who pathetically believed that a Socialist mayor
would somehow give them five-cent milk. The
voters in New York City who wish immediate peace
without any regard to national honor, or to what
future horrors such a peace would bring, are cer
tainly less than a fifth of the whole.

The vote was not anti-Administration. A far
larger proportion of the supporters of the Adminis
tration voted for Mr. Hylan than for Mr. Mitchel,
and officially the Administration was neutral be
tween the two. A goodly number of pro-Germans
supported Mr. Hylan, but he was also supported by
a large number of entirely loyal men, and he him
self, unlike the Socialist candidate, Mr. Hillquit, was
avowedly for America against Germany, and for the
prosecution of the war. The election in actual fact
turned directly on local issues. New York occasion
ally witnesses an occasional insurrection of virtue,
but the city has never in fifty years given a good
administration a second term. The insurrection of

GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA 49

virtue at one election is followed by a Tammany
revival at the next.

The result of the election in New York City was
not heartening to patriotic persons, but right next
door, in the Connecticut congressional district which
includes Bridgeport, a contest for a vacant con
gressional seat resulted in a way that speaks well for
the Republic. The Republican candidate, Schuyler
Merritt, a man of high probity and capacity, with
a forward look in international affairs, came out in
bold and straightforward fashion, saying he would
support the President in all measures for the effi
cient prosecution of the war until victory came, that
he would do all he could to prevent our again falling
into the condition of shameful unpreparedness we
had for three years occupied, and that he was for
universal obligatory military training for our young
men. He won by a majority much greater than that
which his precedessor received at the time of the
presidential election last year.

GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA

NOVEMBER 13, 1917

THERE have recently been published various books
by Americans who, during the Great War, have
officially represented this country in Germany and
in Belgium, when the Germans conquered it. Am
bassador Gerard is one writer. Mr. Gibson, secre
tary of our legation at Brussels, is another. Mr.

50 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

Curtis Roth, until recently vice-consul at Plauen,
Saxony, is a third. Their testimony is of profound
significance because of their official position and
personal standing.

Two facts leap to the eye from their writings.
The first is that the German people have stood
practically united behind their Government in up
holding and insisting upon the systematic infliction
of hideous brutality upon their foes. With deliberate
purpose the German Government has carried on a
war of horror, a war of obscene cruelty, of wholesale
slaughter, of foul treachery and bestiality, a war in
which civilians, including women, children, nurses,
doctors, and priests, as well as wounded soldiers,
have been murdered wholesale. The German people
have enthusiastically supported and approved their
acts. Our war is as much with the German people as
with their Government, and we should regard with
loathing all Americans, whether men or women, who
any way attempt to justify or defend Germany's
action. The Americans who so act are traitors to
their country and to humanity at large.

The second fact is the extreme malevolence of
hatred with which Germany regards America, a
hatred which blossomed into full growth before we
went to war, and which was immensely aggravated
because of the contempt inspired by our tame sub
mission to outrage for over two years. Mr. Roth's
testimony is peculiarly interesting. He shows that
the Berlin Government actively stimulated the cam-
paigr of hatred and revenge against America, that

GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA 51

the German people eagerly accepted the view that
Americans were cowardly, avaricious, and effemi
nate, and that in Germany it was constantly an
nounced that, sooner or later, there would be a day of
reckoning when America would have to pay a huge
indemnity or suffer the fate of Belgium.

Mr. Roth shows that the German people think
exactly as their leaders think. They now hate and
despise us Americans as they hate others of their
foes. Says Mr. Roth:

They are resolved to make our country drink to the dregs
out of the bitter cup of humiliation. Nothing do they find
more despicable than our talk about peace, which they at
tribute to cowardice and fiabbiness. They look on the Amer
ican pacifist as a weakling, as a God-given tool in the hands
of German interest. . . . The Germans, if possible, feel more
bitterly towards Americans of German extraction than to
wards Americans of other lines of descent.

Germany has definitely decided on America's ruin.
She has definitely decided that there must be
an intense anti-American spirit in both Govern
ment and people. She may bide her time, and she
will doubtless try to separate us from our allies,
but her purpose towards us is both relentless and
ruthless.

If we are true to ourselves, if we prepare our armed
strength and keep it prepared, if we show farsighted
ness and valor of soul, we can be sternly indifferent
to this foul and evil hatred. But we must keep
steadily in mind that Germany respects nothing
whatever except courage and prepared strength
and that the pacifists and pro-Germans, the Huns

52 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

within our gates, the Hearsts and the La Follettes,
are playing the game of our German foes, and if
they have their way will bring shame and disaster
to our land.

START THE SYSTEM OF UNIVERSAL
MILITARY TRAINING AT ONCE

NOVEMBER 17, 1917

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL S. B. M. YOUNG, U.S.A.,
retired, gave long, faithful, and efficient service to
this country, from the beginning of the Civil War, for
nearly half a century. But he never has rendered
greater service than by his steady insistence upon
the immediate introduction by law in this country
of the system of obligatory universal military train
ing as our permanent policy. This should be done
at once; and all the young men from nineteen to
twenty-one should be called out as soon as there are
means of training them. They need not fight until
they are twenty-one. But they are least needed as
economic assets; they are most needed as military
assets; and it is cruelty to them not to train them in
advance.

The selective draft was far better than nothing.
But let us never forget that it represented doing im
perfectly after the event that which ought to have
been done thoroughly long before the event. We
have been at war three quarters of a year, and the
drafted men, admirable material though they are,

THE SYSTEM OF UNIVERSAL TRAINING 53

are only just beginning to be trained and as yet are
not even armed and properly clothed. We are trying
to train our soldiers to perform the duties of soldiers
after the war has begun; and we can attempt the
experiment at all only because the English and
French protect us from our enemies while we make
it. Hereafter let us train the man to perform the
tasks of a soldier before he is called to be a soldier in
war. Only thus can we be just both to him and to
the country.

The present economic disturbance in the Nation
was inevitable, in view of our failure at the outset
of the Great War to introduce the system of univer
sal, obligatory military training; and this failure is
also responsible for the fact that our national army,
nine months after our entry into the war, has only
begun training, instead of being already trained.
Let us now at least provide for the future. The
amendment to the law above outlined, as advocated
by the National Association for Universal Military
Training, of which General Young is president,
would add nearly two million men to our army,
would cause the minimum of interference with our
economic life, and would not necessitate any addi
tional expense for training quarters.

The men thus trained will be immensely benefited
from the standpoint of their success in civil life; for
universal training would be of immense economic
benefit to the Nation. As Cardinal Gibbons has
well said, " The legislation proposed will benefit
youths from nineteen to twenty-one years, morally

54 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

as well as physically, and help to prepare them for
their work in peace as well as for the sterner needs
of war."

This is the only democratic system. General
Young himself rose from being an enlisted man in
the ranks to being the lieutenant-general of the army
of the United States. Under universal training let
all candidates for West Point and all other candi
dates for commissions be chosen with absolute fair
ness from among the men who have served a year in
the field with the colors. And in the navy let all
candidates for Annapolis be chosen from enlisted
men of the navy who have served at least a year as
such and who are still serving.

A FIFTY-FIFTY WAR ATTITUDE

NOVEMBER 20, 1917

THE attitude of the United States at this moment
toward Germany's three vassal allies, Austria,
Turkey, and Bulgaria, is a fifty-fifty attitude be
tween peace and war. It is not honest war, neither
is it honest neutrality. It is the attitude of the back
woodsman, who, seeking a black animal in his pasture
at dusk and not knowing whether it was a bear
or a calf, fired so as to hit it if it was a bear and
miss it if it was a calf. Such marksmanship is never
happy.

Bulgaria is now simply the tool of Germany and
Turkey. I was formerly a stanch champion of

A FIFTY-FIFTY WAR ATTITUDE 55

Bulgaria, and would be again if she returned to her
senses. But she now serves the devil, and shame be
upon us if we do not treat her accordingly. No one
can doubt that the Bulgarian Legation is an agency
for German spies in this country. The Administra
tion has published reports showing that for over a
year, previous to our entry into the war, the German
Embassy was the center of the spies and dynamiters
with whom Germany was already waging war
against us. These papers show that Germany's
allies are her mere tools and that Germany is with
held by no scruple from the commission of every
conceivable treacherous intrigue and brutal outrage
against us. Under these conditions it is a grave
offense against our allies not to declare war on all of
Germany's allies.

Turkey has been and is the tool of Germany, but
Germany has permitted her on her own account to
perpetrate massacres on the Armenian and Syrian
Christians which renders it little short of an infamy
now to remain at peace with her. It is hypocritical
to express sympathy with the Armenians and ap
point messages to be read in the churches about
them and yet refuse to do the only thing that will
permanently help them which is to declare war on
Turkey.

With Austria our present relations are less defin
able than our relations with any other power. No
one can truthfully say exactly whether our attitude
is one of peace or war. We have not declared war on
Austria and yet we are furnishing money, coal, and

56 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

munitions to Italy in order to enable her to fight
Austria. If we really are at peace with Austria, we
are flagrantly violating our duty as a neutral and
we ought to be condemned in any international
court. But if we are really at war, then we are
committing the cardinal crime of hitting soft. If
we had gone to war with Austria when we broke
with Germany and had acted with proper energy,
the disaster to Cadorna would probably not have
occurred.

We are now taking part in the general council of
our allies. The only way in which to make our part
in the war thoroughly effective and our leadership
felt to the utmost is whole-heartedly to throw our-
self into the war on the side of all our allies and
against all their and our enemies.

THE GERMANIZED SOCIALISTS AND
PEACE

NOVEMBER 26, 1917

THE American Socialist party at the present time
is a thoroughly Germanized annex of the Prussian
ized militaristic and capitalistic autocracy of the
Hohenzollerns. Honest social reformers have left it.
No patriotic American ought longer to stay in it.
It is purely an aid to the capitalist and militarist
Hohenzollern party of Germany. It is a bitter
enemy of the United States and a traitor to the
cause of liberty throughout the world. Its leaders

GERMANIZED SOCIALISTS ANP PEACE 57

are the supporters of an alien autocracy and are
seeking to secure a peace which would immensely
benefit this Prussian autocracy. They stand beside
the Bolsheviki, whose antics have made Russia at
this moment a by-word, both of derision and hope to
every believer in despotism and every opponent of
liberty throughout the world.

Any man who feels that there is the slightest
exaggeration in the above statements would do well
to read the articles in which the New York Tribune
has recently set forth the connection of Mr. William
Bayard Hale with the pro-German propaganda in
this country, with the Hearst papers^and with the
Socialist campaign in New York on behalf of Mr.
Hillquit and a peace satisfactory to Germany.
These articles should be published in permanent
form and circulated as a tract among all decent
Americans who still believe that the Germanized
Socialist party in America to-day is anything except
the foe of America, the foe of democratic liberty
throughout the world, and the tool and ally of the
autocrats, the capitalists, and the brutal and un
scrupulous military chiefs of the Prussianized Ger
many of the Hohenzollerns.

Exactly as the reactionary is in the end the worst
foe of order; exactly as the conscienceless and
greedy man of wealth is in the end the worst foe of
property and of honest and duty-performing holders
of property, so the Anarchist and the wild Socialist,
whose doctrines when applied necessarily lead to
Anarchy and the I.W.W., and the crack-brained

58 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

professional pacifists inevitably themselves are the
worst enemies of freedom, of true democracy, and
of righteousness. It is natural that in this terrible
and melancholy world crisis these men should have
struck hands with the sordid tools of German in
trigue in this country. The masters of Germany find
all these men, whatever their nominal differences,
united in the evil bond of a common subserviency to
German purposes. The German rulers, who at home
trample on the Socialists and dragoon the labor
organizations and bully the leader of democratic
thought, cynically profit by aiding in other countries
the men who in the name of social reform seek to
overthrow orderly liberty and thereby show them
selves the sinister allies of tyranny and despotism.

MOBILIZE OUR MAN POWER
DECEMBER i, 1917

IT has been announced from Washington that, in
view of the shortage of labor on the farms, there will
be an effort in Congress to permit the importation
for temporary use on the farms of Chinese coolies.
I do not believe the effort will be successful, and if it
were successful it would be one of the greatest
calamities that could befall the American people.

Never under any condition should this Nation
look at an immigrant as primarily a labor unit. He
should always be looked at primarily as a future
citizen and the father of other citizens who are to

MOBILIZE OUR MAN POWER 59

live in this land as fellows with our children and our
children's children. Our immigration laws, per
manent or temporary, should always be constructed
with this fact in view. No temporary advantages
from the importation of Chinese coolies would offset
the far-reaching ultimate damage it would cause.

Neither ought we to approve the plan, sometimes
set forth by zealous and high-minded men, to get
the Government to open up vast tracts of land and
farm it with wage labor. This is a proposal to sub
stitute a wage-earning agricultural proletariat for a
farming population which owns the land it tills. It
is a move in exactly the wrong direction. We ought
by law to do everything possible to put a stop to the
growth of an absentee landlord class and of huge
estates worked by tenant farmers. Methods identi
cal with or similar to those advocated by me, in my
recent book, " The Foes of Our Own Household,"
point the way to the proper permanent solution of
the question.

As a war measure, rather than adopt either of the
proposals above enumerated, let us deal boldly with
the situation created by the existence of such vast
numbers of men in good physical condition, who are
not being utilized. The best war asset and labor
asset in this country is the mass of young men from
eighteen to twenty-one. This draft law explicitly
and unjustifiably excepts this class, although in the
Civil War most of the soldiers entered the army
when they were under twenty-one. Let us proclaim
as our policy that while this war lasts no man shall

60 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

be excused from doing the full duty which the Nation
finds it necessary to demand from him. Make all
the young men from eighteen to twenty-one im
mediately liable to service, permit no exceptions for
any men, no matter how wealthy, who are not al
ready in the army. Use as many of the men thus
taken as are necessary to fill the camps when the
present drafted men of the national army leave
them. Use all the others, and use these men, too,
until the camps are ready for them, as labor which
the Nation shall mobilize for farm work or any other
work which it is imperative to do, and mobilize all
the alien labor now in the country in similar fashion.

THE LANSDOWNE LETTER
DECEMBER 2, 1917

LORD LANSDOWNE'S proposal is for a peace of defeat
for the Allies and of victory for Germany. Such a
peace would leave oppressed peoples under the yoke
of Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria. Such a peace
would leave the liberty-loving nations of mankind
at the ultimate mercy of the triumphant militarism
and capitalism of the German autocracy.

It merely makes such a peace worse to try to hide
the shame of the defeat behind the empty pretense
of forging a league of nations, including Germany, to
secure future peace. Such a peace would mean that
Germany saw her unspeakable brutality and treach
ery crowned by essential triumph and therefore

THE LANSDOWNE LETTER 61

would put a premium upon her repeating the bru
tality and treachery at the earliest convenient mo
ment. It is mere hypocrisy to promise to put a stop
to wrongdoing in the future unless we are willing to
undergo the labor and peril necessary to stop wrong
doing in the present. In our own country nothing
but harm was done by the worthy persons who, a
couple of years ago, formed a league to enforce peace
in the future, while at the same time they nervously
declared that they would have nothing to do with
enforcing peace by stopping international wrong in
the present. Lord Lansdowne's proposal to hide the
admission of present defeat behind the camouflage
of pretended international peace agreements for the
future is unworthy of his distinguished services and
reputation.

Our people ought never to forget that Germany
respects nothing but strength and the readiness and
ability to use it. Germany has made a fetish of able
brutality. She regards with utter derision the paci
fists and pro-Germans in this country. She will use
them as her tools and pay them when necessary, but
if through this aid she was able to conquer this
country after previously separating us from our
allies, she would with utter indifference break these
tools and throw them on the scrap-heap with the
rest of the American people.

There is but one safe course to follow, and that is
to fight this war through to victory at no matter
what cost. This Nation should declare war on
Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria, this week. Let us

62 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

definitely announce that our aims include restoring
and indemnifying Belgium, giving back Alsace and
Lorraine to France, creating a Poland which shall
include all the Poles and a greater Bohemia and a
great Jugo-Slav commonwealth and restoring Ru
manian Hungary to Rumania, and Italian Austria
to Italy, and driving the Turk from Europe and
freeing Armenia and Syria and Arabia. After
victory let us join in any arrangement to increase
the likelihood of future international peace, but let
us treat this as an addition to, and never as a sub
stitute for, the preparedness which is the only sure
guarantee against either war or measureless disaster.
Therefore let us at once introduce as our permanent
national policy the system of universal obligatory
military training of all our young men.

THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
DECEMBER 5, 1917

THE President has in admirable language set forth
the firm resolve of the American people that the war
shall be fought through to the end until it is crowned
by the peace of complete victory. He states un
equivocally that our task is to win the war, that
nothing shall turn us aside from it until it is ac
complished, and that every power and resource we
possess will be used to achieve this purpose. He
states that there shall be no peace until the war is
won. He says that this peace must deliver, not only
Belgium and Northern France, but the peoples of

THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE 63

Austria-Hungary, of the Balkan Peninsula, and of
Turkey in Europe and Asia from " the impudent
and alien dominion of the Prussian military and
commercial autocracy/' He emphatically states
that we have no purpose to wrong the German
people or subject them to oppression, but merely to
prevent others from being oppressed by them. He
states that if Germany persists in adherence to her
present rulers and their policies, it will be impossible,
even after the war, to treat her as other nations are
treated, but that, although we intend to right the
wrongs inflicted by Germany on other nations, we
have no intention to inflict similar wrongs on Ger
many in return. He says that the mind of the
Russian people has been poisoned by the rulers of
Germany, exactly as the latter have poisoned the
minds of their own people.

To all of this the heart of the American people
will answer a devout amen. The message is a
solemn pledge on behalf of this Nation that we shall
use every energy we possess to win the war, and that
we shall accept no peace not based on the complete
overthrow of Germany. The American people must
now devote themselves with grim resolution and
whole-hearted purpose to the effective translation
of this pledge into action, for, of course, the sole value
of such a promise lies in the manner in which it is
actually made good. The people must back the
Government in every step to carry into effect this
pledge and must tolerate no failure in any official
charged with the duty of carrying it into effect.

64 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

I shall shortly discuss the proposals of the Presi
dent in reference to Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria.
But in this editorial I wish merely, as one among the
countless Americans to whom the honor and welfare
and high ideals of America are dear, to say amen to
the President's expressed purpose to wage this war
through to the end with all our strength and to
accept no peace save that of complete victory.

FOUR BITES OF A CHERRY
DECEMBER 7, 1917

IN his recent message to Congress President Wilson
stated that in order " to push our great war of
freedom and justice to its righteous conclusion we
must clear away with a thorough hand all impedi
ments to success," and added, " The very embarrass
ing obstacle that stands in our way is that we are at
war with Germany, but not with her allies." He
recommended that we declare war on Austria, and
added, " The same logic would lead also to a declara
tion of war against Turkey and Bulgaria." But
inferentially and for reasons not apparent he advised
against such action.

The President is entirely right in stating that our
failure hitherto to declare war on the allies of Ger
many has been a very embarrassing obstacle to our
success, and he is entirely right in advising a dec
laration of war against Austria. Incidentally I
wish to point out that this is precisely what I insisted

FOUR BITES OF A CHERRY 65

upon in these columns two months ago, and what I
had elsewhere advocated six months ago, and it is
worth while remembering that the Administration
papers then assailed me for urging the course which,
although there has not been the slightest change in
the situation, the President now urges.

There was no justification whatever for failure to
declare war on Austria when we declared war on
Germany, and there is now no justification for failure
to declare war on Bulgaria and Turkey when we
declare war on Austria. There is no use in making
four bites of a cherry. There is no use in going to war
a little, but not much. The President has sent a
message pledging support to Rumania, but it is
worse than an empty form to send such a message
unless we forthwith declare war on Bulgaria. The
President has appointed a Sunday for the special
expression of sympathy with Armenia, but such
expression of sympathy is utterly meaningless unless
we go to war with Turkey. The Austro-Hungarian
and Turkish empires must be broken up if we intend
to make the world even moderately safe for democ
racy. There must be a revived Poland, taking in all
the Poles of Austria, Prussia, and Russia; a greater
Bohemia, taking in Moravia and the Slovaks; a
great Jugo-Slav commonwealth, including Serbia,
Croatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, while the Ru
manians in Hungary should become part of Rumania
and the Italians in Austria part of Italy. The Turk
must be driven from Europe and Christian and Arab
freed. Only in this manner can we do justice to the

66 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

subject peoples tyrannized over by the Germans,
Magyars, and Turks. Only in this way can we re
move the menace of German aggression, which has
become a haunting nightmare for all civilizations,
especially in the case of small, well-behaved, liberty-
loving peoples.

By declaring war on Germany's allies we do not
commit ourselves to asking anything that is not
just for our own allies. But by failing to declare war
on Germany's allies we are ourselves guilty of in
justice to our own allies.

THE RED CROSS CHRISTMAS

MEMBERSHIP DRIVE

DECEMBER 12, 1917

NEXT week, the week before Christmas, the Red
Cross wishes to add ten million new members to the
five million members it already possesses. Last June
the Red Cross War Council asked the people of the
United States to raise one hundred millions of
dollars for Red Cross work, and Jhe people responded
by raising one hundred and nineteen millions. The
purpose now is to increase threefold its membership.
This is the people's war. All people should, so far
as possible, share the burden and the glory. The
whole fighting manhood of the Nation, without any
exception save in the interest of the Nation, should
be trained to arms and made ready for the front.
The Liberty Loans should be taken by every one so

THE RED CROSS CHRISTMAS DRIVE 67

that the bondholders of the Nation may be the
people of the Nation, and now this Red Cross mem
bership campaign is one more Nation-wide effort to
bring home to all our people their obligations to
this country and to suffering humanity.

We must realize that every single individual in
this country is derelict to his duty unless according
to his capacity he does his part in helping organize
for the war. Individual effort alone will not avail
and Germany's strength has come from her keen
realization of this fact. We must have an organized
Nation, both at the front and at home. There can
be no organization without discipline, and the Red
Cross is one of the great agencies through which we
can make progress toward such self-discipline.

The Red Cross does not ask for the new members
primarily because of the money they bring. The
money will do great good, for the need is pressing;
but even more important than the money will be the
effect if on Christmas morning the Red Cross can flash
around the world the news that ten million more
Americans have joined its ranks and thereby put
themselves unqualifiedly behind our army and navy.

The Red Cross has done an extraordinary work
abroad and is doing an extraordinary work at home.
Abroad it is in every way supplementing the army
and navy medical corps in Europe and is accumulat
ing enormous hospital supplies for the use of our
soldiers and sailors. It has sent over a million dollars
in money and stores to Italy. It is giving both
military and civilian relief in France. It is supplying

68 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

over thirty-five hundred French military hospitals
and two thousand French civil hospitals with surgi
cal dressings, drugs, and supplies. It is helping to
care for half a million tuberculosis victims and re
store a million and a half French refugees to normal
life. At home it is helping to care for the dependent
families of our soldiers and sailors. It has organized
fifty-seven army and navy base hospitals, over a
dozen of which have already been sent to France.
Its useful activities in different lines are well-nigh
innumerable.

This is the work the Red Cross has done and is
doing for America and the world. Now let all
Americans in their turn stand by the Red Cross and
help in its Christmas membership drive.

BEING BRAYED IN A MORTAR

DECEMBER 18, 1917

PRESIDENT WILSON speaks in military matters
through his Secretary of War. The sole importance
of the Secretary of War's report comes from its
being the official declaration of the President. I
discuss it as such.

According to the reports in the New York World,
the Secretary of War states that " he does not favor
universal military training as a permanent policy."
Mr. Wilson's secretary, therefore, takes what is in
effect the position of Mr. Bryan, which was pictur
esquely phrased as being that a million men can at

BEING BRAYED IN A MORTAR 69

need spring to arms overnight. The Administra
tion's attitude is less picturesquely expressed, but it
is precisely as futile and as unspeakably mischievous
from a standpoint of permanent national interest.
Moreover, it is taken at the very time when the dis
astrous effect of the Administration's policy of com
plete unpreparedness is being shown by the admis
sions of General Crozier on the first day of the con
gressional investigation. Mr. Baker's report, Mr.
Bryan's theory, and the things already shown by the
congressional investigation dovetail into one an
other. They stand in the relation of cause and effect.
The Administration now officially and complacently
announces that the policy which at this very moment
has proved disastrous is to be persevered in for the
future, therefore assumes complete responsibility for
every blunder and delay, and for all the misconduct,
and announces that these blunders and delays and
all this misconduct have taught us nothing, and that
we are to amble onward in the same futile path until
disaster overtakes. Mr. Wilson's Administration
officially declares that we shall persist in our own
folly until we are brayed in the mortar of dreadful
calamity.

If the Administration frankly and manfully ac
knowledged its evil errors in the past and cham
pioned a policy which would prevent the repetition
of these errors in the future, I would think only of
the future and not of the past, but now it is necessary
to emphasize the past in order to avoid disaster in
the future.

70 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

We are in the eleventh month since Germany
went to war with us. We have not yet built an aero
plane fit to match the speedy battle planes of our
foes. We have not built a heavy field gun; on the
contrary, we have had to draw on burdened friends
to give us artillery. In the training camps of the
national army the artillery regiments still have about
ten wooden guns for every old field piece, and they
have none of the modern guns they are to use in the
war. There are rifles only for every third or fourth
man. Until ten months had elapsed there was no
target practice save for a few specially selected
units. The troops still have only wooden machine
guns and the trench mortars they themselves
improvise.

Until ten months had elapsed they lacked even
the necessary warm clothing. They have endured
entirely needless suffering and hardship. Our troops
in France have received thousands of coffins, but
an insufficient number of shoes. At this moment
not more than one tenth of our soldiers, taken alto
gether, are fit to go to battle. Nine tenths of our
gallant and fine-spirited men are still without the
training, arms, and equipment that would permit
them to meet any trained foes. After ten months
of war and the expenditure of huge sums of money,
we are still absolutely unable to defend ourselves and
owe our own safety only to the fleets and armies of
our war-worn allies.

This condition is due solely and entirely to the
policy of unpreparedness to which the Administra-

RENDERING A GREAT PUBLIC SERVICE 71

tion adhered for two and one half years when even
the blind ought to have read the lesson of the great
war. The Administration now announces that we
are not to alter this policy and that we are to con
tinue the do-nothing policy of refusing to help. If
the American people follow the lead thus given them,
they will be guilty of criminal folly.

RENDERING A GREAT PUBLIC SERVICE

DECEMBER 20, 1917

SENATOR CHAMBERLAIN has rendered a public serv
ice by presenting the bill to provide universal ob
ligatory military training for all the young men of
the Nation. Senator Wadsworth has rendered a
public service by pushing the senatorial investigation
of our lamentable military unpreparedness. Con
gressman Medill McCormick has rendered a public
service by showing that we have heavily burdened
our war-worn ally, France, by demanding from her the
guns which it was inexcusable in us not previously
to have built.

These three services all hang together. Senator
Chamberlain's proposal is to supplant selective con
scription after war has begun by universal service,
which would probably mean the avoidance of war
altogether. It was grave misfortune that at the
outset of this war we did not call for a million vol
unteers and at the same time put all the young men
between nineteen and twenty-two into the training

72 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

camps. There has been some very gross favoritism
in granting exemption and, moreover, the men be
tween twenty-two and thirty-one include a high
percentage of married men and of others who ought
not to go to war at present. This unwise, wasteful,
and inefficient system should not be patched up.
The Nation sorely needs, both as a war measure and
as a permanent policy, the immediate introduction
of universal military training and service for all our
young men as proposed above.

Senator Wadsworth and Representative Mc-
Cormick are in straightforward fashion showing
the inevitable results of the policy of unpreparedness
which we have followed for three and a half years,
and which the Administration, through Secretary
Baker, now actually advocates as our permanent
policy. Senator Wadsworth has shown, beyond pos
sibility of anything except willful misrepresentation,
that he has no partisan purpose whatever and that
the investigation is designed solely to rouse the
Government and the public to greater efforts in
speeding up the war. The Committee on Military
Affairs of the Senate is showing no partisanship.
They realize that we cannot win the war merely by
announcing programmes. They realize that we have
a long road to travel and that we have made a slow
start. They wish to help the Administration, and
in order to do this it is imperative to tell the truth.

Some of the fault for the present situation is due
to the shortcomings of individuals during the last
ten months, but the major part is due to our failure

A BETRAYAL OF DEMOCRACY 73

as a Nation to embark on the policy of preparedness
three and a half years ago. Nine tenths of wisdom
is being wise in time. Now our people must brace
themselves to face unpleasant truths. There is not
the slightest reason for discouragement. If we
choose, we can, through our governmental repre
sentatives, quickly remedy the defects and then
exert with decisive effect our tremendous latent
powers. But we need to know the truth and then to
act with instant and resolute efficiency and with
single-minded patriotism.

A BETRAYAL OF DEMOCRACY

DECEMBER 21, 1917

PRESIDENT WILSON has announced that we are in
this war to make the world safe for democracy.
Either this declaration was worse than empty rhet
oric or we are in honor bound to make it good. In
deed, to prove false to it now is to be guilty of
peculiarly offensive hypocrisy.

The only way to make the world safe for democ
racy is to free the people over whom Turkey and
Austria tyrannize. Every day's delay in declaring war
on Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria has represented
and now represents a betrayal of democracy and of
our allies. It is hypocritical to send an encouraging
message to Rumania and not to declare war on
Bulgaria. It is hypocritical to shed crocodile tears
over Armenia and not to declare war on Turkey.

74 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

When President Wilson says, " We do not wish in
any way to rearrange the Austria-Hungarian Em
pire; it is no affair of ours what they do," he is
engaged in the betrayal of democracy, and if his
present words are to be taken seriously, then his
declaration about making the world safe for de
mocracy was false and empty rhetoric. Either one
statement or the other must be unsparingly con
demned by all honest men. In view of the last
statement there is small wonder that the Austrian
Foreign Minister says that " it is to our interest to
nail down " the statement in question, because it
abandons the proposal, or, as the Austrian minister
phrases it, " the catch phrase," to allow all small
states to determine their own destinies. No wonder
that the leading Vienna paper contemptuously
states that President Wilson wishes to act as an
" European peace intermediary," being one of the
leaders who " apparently consider a warlike noise
the best overture to a peace conference."

There is also no wonder that the Czech Slovaks
feel with intense bitterness about this betrayal. One
of their papers in this country describes how loyally
they have supported America and the Allies, and
describes the dreadful butcheries and persecutions
of their men, women, and children in Bohemia, and
then asks whether it can be true that America now
really proposes to keep them " under the merciless
tyranny of the Huns."

This is precisely what President Wilson proposes
when he says that it is no affair of ours to rearrange

A BETRAYAL OF DEMOCRACY 75

the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, or, in other words,
no affair of ours to free the Czechs, Slovaks, Jugo
slavs, Italians, and Rumanians, who, together with
the Poles, make up the majority of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire and who are ground down by
tyranny of the Germans and the Magyars.

The President's proposal represents three separate
betrayals.

It is the betrayal of the Slavs of Austria, to whose
cause our allies have pledged themselves and who
form a democratic population oppressed by a mili
taristic autocracy.

It is the betrayal of democracy, because we aban
don the majority who are our friends into the hands
of a minority, who despise and hate us.

It is the betrayal of the free people everywhere to
Germany, for Germany is now a world menace,
chiefly because Austria and Turkey are her subject
allies, and President Wilson's proposal is to leave
them undisturbed.

A peace without a change of frontiers and without
indemnification for brutal wrongdoing, a peace
which does not create an independent and united
Poland and a greater Bohemia and Jugo-Slovak
commonwealth, as well as a greater Italy and a
greater Rumania, and which does not free and
indemnify Belgium, would leave every perilous
problem of Europe unsolved. It would be timid and
calamitous folly to refuse to touch the disputed
questions which, if left unanswered, are absolutely
certain to invite a future war.

76 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

BROOMSTICK PREPAREDNESS -
A STUDY IN CAUSE AND EFFECT
DECEMBER 27, 1917

IT is earnestly to be hoped that the congressional
investigation into the fruits of our military unpre-
paredness will keep two objects clearly in mind.
First, the aim must be to speed up the work of
efficient war preparation by doing away with all
the present practices that are wrong. Second, the
aim should be to make evident to all our people that
our present shameful shortcomings are due to failure
to prepare in advance and that never again ought we
to allow our governmental leaders to put us in such
a humiliating and unworthy position.

It will be quite impossible to get at all the facts of
our unpreparedness. Most officers will be very re
luctant to testify to the whole truth. They know
that they will suffer if they do so, because they have
seen the punishment inflicted by the Administration
on Major-General Wood for the sole reason that he
dared to tell the truth about our shortcomings, and
dared to advocate preparedness in advance. For
this reason I am not at liberty to quote the generals,
colonels, captains, and lieutenants of the artillery,
infantry, medical corps, and quartermaster corps
who have told me of their troubles with unheated
hospitals, insufficient drugs, summer underclothes in
winter weather, lack of overcoats, of shoes, of rifles,
of ammunition, of cannon. But in the camps I

BROOMSTICK PREPAREDNESS 77

visited I saw some things so evident that no harm
can come to any officer from my speaking of them.

Last fall I saw thousands of men drilling with
broomsticks. I have such a broomstick now before
me. Last fall I saw thousands of men drilling with
rudely whittled wooden guns. I have one such before
me now. I saw them drilling with wooden machine
guns as late as the beginning of December. I saw
barrels mounted on sticks, on which zealous captains
were endeavoring to teach their men how to ride a
horse. I saw in the national army camps in Illinois
and Ohio scores of wooden cannon. Doubtless any
man can see them now if he goes there.

The excellent officers in the camps are as rapidly
as possible remedying these deficiencies. I hope and
believe that by spring they will all be remedied. But
let our people not forget that for one year after
Germany went to war with us we were wholly unable
to defend ourselves and owed our safety only to the
English and French ships and armies.

The cause was our refusal to prepare in advance.
President Wilson's message of December, 1914, in
which he ridiculed those who advocated prepared
ness, was part of the cause. His presidential cam
paign on the " He kept us out of war " issue was part
of the cause. We paid the price later with broom
stick rifles, logwood cannon, soldiers without shoes,
and epidemics of pneumonia in the camps. We are
paying the price now. We pay the price in the
doubled cost of necessary war supplies. We pay the
price in shortage of coal and congested transporta-

78 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

tion. The refusal to prepare and the price we now
pay because of the refusal stand in the relation of
cause and effect.

I do not dwell on these facts to blame anybody. I
dwell on them in order to wake our people to the
necessity of learning the lesson they teach. Our next
and permanent duty is to introduce the policy of
universal obligatory military training for all our
young men before they are twenty-one.

OUR DUTY FOR THE NEW YEAR
JANUARY i, 1918

IN the papers there recently appeared a brief state
ment made by an unnamed young American major
to his troops in the trenches in France. He said: -

We have reached the top in training. If you need any
thing, come and tell me and I will get it for you if I can. If
I do not get it, I do not want to hear about it again, for it
means that I cannot get it. We will have three meals a day
if we can get them. If we have to miss one meal, we will not
be badly off, and if we miss two or three, it will not be much
worse. We are expected to work from midnight of one day
to midnight of the next day. If there is any chance to sleep
between, all right. It will also be all right if there is no
chance. Let everybody pitch in. While mud and water must
be fought, it may be much worse. The hopes of the Nation
are fixed on each man.

The ideal of duty thus set before our soldiers, be
fore the Americans who at this time risk most and
suffer most, is substantially the ideal of duty toward
which all of the rest of us here in America should, in

OUR DUTY FOR THE NEW YEAR 79

our turn, likewise strive. We must brace ourselves
for effort and for endurance through a hard and
dangerous year. High of heart and with unfaltering
soul, we must do our part in the grim work of toiling
and fighting to bring a little nearer the day when
there shall be orderly liberty throughout the world
and when justice and mercy and brotherly love shall
obtain between man and man and among all the
nations of mankind. We must show our faith by
our works. We must prove our truth by our en
deavor. We must scorn the baseness which uses
high-sounding speech to cloak ignoble action and
which seems to betray suffering right with the Judas
kiss of the treacherous peace.

During the year that is opening we at home will
suffer discomfort and privation and wearing anxiety.
What of it? What we at home endure will be as
nothing compared to that which is faced by the sons
and brothers, by the husbands and fathers at the
front, and what the fighting men of to-day face and
bear will be no harder than what was faced and
borne by Washington's troops at Valley Forge and
Trenton and by the soldiers of Grant and Lee when
they wrestled in the Wilderness. We inherit as free
men this fair and mighty land only because our
fathers and forefathers had iron in their blood. We
can leave our heritage undiminished to those who
come after us only if we in our turn show a resolute
and rugged manliness in the dark days of trial that
have come upon us.

Let us all individually and collectively do our

8o ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

whole duty with brave hearts. Let us pay our taxes,
subscribe to the government loans, work at our
several tasks with all our strength, support all the
agencies which take care of our troops, and accept
the stinting in fuel or food as part of the price we
pay. Let our prime care be the welfare and warlike
efficiency of the men at the front and in the training
camps. Let us hold to sharp account every public
servant who in any way comes short of his duty in
this respect. But let us also insist that the soldiers at
the front and in the camps treat every shortcoming
merely as an obstacle to be overcome or remedied
or offset by their own energy and courage and
resourcefulness. The one absolute essential for our
people is to insist that this war be seen through at
no matter what cost until it is crowned with the
peace of overwhelming victory for the right.

TELL THE TRUTH AND SPEED UP
THE WAR

JANUARY 4, 1918

ANY m^n who at this time leaves undone anything
to increase our fighting efficiency is a foe of America
and a friend of Germany. The man who objects to
fearless exposure and criticism of the governmental
shortcomings which must be exposed if they are to
be corrected is a foe to America and a friend to
Germany, and in addition shows that he possesses a
thoroughly servile mind. The critic whose criticism

TELL THE TRUTH 81

is not constructive, or who treats shortcomings as
causes for being disheartened about the war instead
of as an incentive to strive for the greater efficiency
in waging the war and in preparing for the future, is
a foe to America and a friend to every present or
future foe of America.

When the Administration stands against universal
military training and talks with vague looseness of
future paper guarantees against war, it renders it
imperatively necessary to bring home to our people
the tremendous damage done by our lamentable
folly in refusing to prepare since August, 1914. It is
a betrayal of our country to protest against telling
the truth for this purpose.

This is the twelfth month since Germany in effect
declared war on us and we broke relations with
Germany. We have developed our military strength
so slowly that as yet we would be wholly unable to
defend ourselves if we were not protected by the
fleets and armies of our allies. No modern armies
can fight without training in modern war methods
and without modern field guns, auto rifles and air
planes. As yet we only have either cannon borrowed
from the hard-pressed French or else wooden cannon.
We have no auto rifles. Our airplanes are still unfit
to fight modern war planes.

The Patriotic Education Society of Washington
has done capital constructive work in truthfully
telling our needs. It has fearlessly shown our dread
ful shortage in shipbuilding and the deceitful word
ing of government announcements designed to con-

82 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

ceal this shortage. It has shown the vital need of
our, at this late time, bending every energy to
building ships by working three eight-hour shifts a
day in order to put our soldiers and supplies at the
front at the earliest possible moment. The building
of transport ships was the central feature of the
problem we faced on January 31 a year ago. It was
not only a misfortune, but a crime, to neglect it, as
for nine months afterward it was neglected. The
newspapers have just printed the statement that
Colonel House's committee reports that it is of the
utmost importance to get our troops quickly to the
front. Of course it is. Every man of broad vision
has known this for a year. If there had been more
fearless truth-telling during the year there would
have been much less governmental delay and
inefficiency

Tell the truth and speed up the war. Tell the
truth only for constructive purposes and only with
the unalterable determination to exert every particle
of our strength at the earliest possible moment, so
as to win peace by overwhelming victory. f

THE COST OF UNPREPAREDNESS
JANUARY 6, 1918

SENATOR CHAMBERLAIN, in order to minimize the
chance of future war and to insure us against dis
aster, if in future war should unhappily come, has
introduced a bill for universal military training of

THE COST OF UNPREPAREDNESS 83

our young men under the age of twenty-one. The
Administration declares against universal training
and therefore for a continuance of the policy of un-
preparedness, the fruits of which we are enjoying.
Some of these fruits are as follows:

According to the statement of Mr. Fitzgerald, the
chairman of the Committee on Appropriations of
the House, Congress appropriated during the last
year $18,880,000,000 and provided authorization for
which cash must be supplied before next July of
$2,510,000,000, making our year's war expenses a
grand total of $21,390,000,000. This equals the
entire sum Great Britain expended during the first
three years of the war. It is over twenty times as
great as for any previous year in our history, except
the year that saw the close of the Civil War, and
it is seventeen times as great as that. The appropri
ations for the year are twenty-two times as great as
the total interest-bearing debt of the United States
one year ago. They come within four billion dollars
of the total expenditures of the United States Gov
ernment from 1776 to 1917. They equal the ex
penditure of twenty dollars a minute for every min
ute since the birth of Christ.

Had we started to prepare in time, one half of
this cost would have been saved. The tremendous
pressure coming suddenly caused an immense in
crease in expenditures, even aside from the futile
waste, extravagance, and misdirection. Had we gone
into the war when the Lusitania was sunk, we would
have saved a third of the sum, for we have provided

84 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

to loan our allies about seven billions. Our delay in
going to war and, above all, delay in preparing, have
resulted in a huge increase in the money chest and
in the length of the war and in the terrible total of
avoidable human suffering.

The lack of preparedness is responsible for the
sickness among our soldiers. Take as an example
the ravages of pneumonia in the training camps.
The men in the training camps are physically of
exceptional type and are in the prime of life. Their
death-rate ought not normally to be more than a
small fraction of that in New York City, where the
total population includes the very young, the very
old, the weak and sick, the badly nurtured. The
population of New York City is 4,800,000. The
population of the thirty camps is about six hundred
thousand. In the two weeks of last December the
death-rate in the city from pneumonia was one to
every 16,500 people. In the camps it was one to
2800. Therefore, the specially selected men of the
camps suffered from a death-rate six times as great
as in the heterogeneous city population. And of
every three men attacked, one died.

Doubtless administrative blundering during the
last year is largely responsible for this showing.
But the prime cause is the failure to prepare in
advance. Our first duty at the moment is to speed
up the war. Our second duty is to secure real
preparedness as. outlined in Senator Chamberlain's
bill.

COOPERATION AND CONTROL ^ 85

COOPERATION AND CONTROL
JANUARY 8, 1918

THE assumption of control by the Government over
the railroads was certainly necessary. Exactly how
far it will go is not evident. At present what
has been done is merely to introduce government
supervision and control over railroads which are re
quired to combine their operations in flat defiance of
the Sherman Law. In other words, the Government
has wisely abandoned the effort to enforce competi
tion among the railroads and has introduced the
principle of control over corporative organizations.
The Attorney-General has just announced that he
will, for the time being, abandon the suits under the
Sherman Law to break up the harvester and steel
corporations, because it is not wise to do so during
the war. Mr. Culbertson, the able expert on the
government tariff board, has announced that the
Sherman Law is mischievous in international trade.
Mr. Francis Heney, than whom in 'all the country
there is no more determined and efficient enemy of
wrongdoing corporations, has stated that the Sher
man Law, the so-cajled Anti-Trust Law, is mis
chievous in our domestic business and should be
repealed. In other words, under the strain of the
war the Sherman Law has completely broken down
and the Government is not merely conniving at,
but encouraging, its violation by many different
corporations.

86 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

The Sherman Law, or so-called Anti-Trust Law, is
just as mischievous. in peace as in war. It represents
an effort to meet a great evil in the wrong way. As
long as corporations claimed complete immunity
from government control, the first necessity was to
establish the right of the Government to control
them. This right and power of the Government was
established by the Northern Securities suit, which
prevented all the railroads of the country from being
united under one corporation which defied govern
ment control. The suits against the Standard Oil
and Tobacco trusts followed. The Supreme Court
decreed that the trusts had been guilty of grave
misconduct and should be dissolved, but not a
particle of good followed their dissolution. It is
evident that the Sherman Law, or so-called Anti-
Trust Law, in no way meets the evils of the indus
trial world. To try to break up corporations because
they are big and efficient is either ineffective or
mischievous. What is needed is to exercise govern
ment control over them, so as to encourage their
efficiency and prosperity, but to insure that the effi
ciency is used in the public interest and that the
prosperity is properly passed around.

Merely to repeal the Sherman Law without
putting anything in its place would do harm. It
should at once be amended or superseded by a law
which would in some shape permit and require
the issuing of licenses by the Federal Government
to corporations doing an interstate or international
business. Corporations which did not take out such

THE ARTEMUS WARD THEORY OF WAR 87

licenses or comply with the rules of the Govern
ment's administrative board would be subject to the
Sherman Law. The others would be under govern
ment control and would be encouraged to cooperate
and in every way to become prosperous and efficient,
the Government guaranteeing by its supervision
that the corporations* prosperity and efficiency were
in the public interest.

THE ARTEMUS WARD THEORY OF WAR

JANUARY 17, 1918

THE great American humorist, Artemus Ward,
whose writings gave such delight to Abraham Lin
coln, once remarked that he was willing to sacrifice
all his wife's relatives on the altar of the country.
Mr. Ward was not in President Lincoln's Cabinet.
Mr. Baker is in President Wilson's Cabinet. He
takes substantially the same ground that Artemus
Ward took, although possibly with a more uncon
scious humor. He has just uttered a heroic senti
ment expressing his pleased acquiescence in the
sacrifice of France and England's armies for the
defense of the common cause.

On Wednesday of last week, discussing the likeli
hood that the Germans, relieved from anxiety of
Russia, would make a tremendous assault on the
western front, Mr. Baker said: " The impending
German offensive will possibly be their greatest
assault. The French and British armies can be relied

88 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

upon to withstand the shock." Mr. Baker is Presi
dent Wilson's Secretary of War. He holds at this
time the most important office in our Government.
He thus announces to our allies and the world that
in the twelfth month after Germany went to war
with us, America, the richest country of the world
with a population of one hundred million people,
after being at war nearly a year and after such warn
ing as never a nation had before, is wholly unable to
send any effective assistance to repel the greatest
assault of the war, and that the only military meas
ure which can be taken is to express through Mr.
Baker the belief that the British and French armies
can be relied upon to do alone the duty which we
ought to share with them.

This statement of Mr. Baker absolves us from all
necessity of commenting on his ingenuous defense
of a system of preparedness which leaves our small
army at the front with no artillery except what we
get from the French and our army at home with
batteries made out of telegraph poles and logwood.
It is not necessary to discuss the exact amount of
pride we should as a Nation take in the fact that
as a Nation after eleven months of war we are
proudly emerging from the broomstick rifle stage
preparedness into the telegraph pole stage prepared
ness. Mr. Baker's statement sums up the situation
exactly. We have been at war nearly a year, and
when the Germans make their greatest assault our
preparedness is only such as to warrant our express
ing belief that our allies can win without our help.

THE FRUITS OF WATCHFUL WAITING 89

The New York Times, a supporter of the Adminis
tration, comments truthfully on the situation:

Nine months after entering the war not only are we giving
our allies no effective military aid, but all our bustle and stir
doesn't hide the fact that, through incompetence and lack of
organization and system, we are far behind in our prepara
tions to supply rifles, ammunition, machine guns, airships,
uniforms, clothing for the troops we shall some time have at
the front. Our backwardness is naturally disquieting to our
allies. If one million American soldiers, or half that number,
fully equipped, had stood on the soil of France, Lloyd George
would have made no speech to British workingmen restating
after a fashion the war aims of the Allies. There would have
been no occasion, nor demand for a speech telling the labor
unions what the troops of Britain are fighting for.

The pacifists and the agencies of German intrigue
would not be working for a peace in the interests of
the capitalistic and militaristic autonomy of Ger
many. As the Times well says, the man who now
works for such a peace while Germany is uncon-
quered " is the most heartless of militarists or enemy
of the world's peace and freedom."

THE FRUITS OF WATCHFUL WAITING

JANUARY 18, 1918

WE have been at war nearly one year. We have
failed to do any damage to Germany, but we have
done a great deal of damage to ourselves. Recently
the President's Secretary of War announced that the
war was three thousand miles away and so he had
not prepared to meet it. Incidentally the feats of the

90 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

German submarine off Newport in the fall of 1916
showed that if it had not been for the Allied fleets
and armies the war would then have been on our own
shores. But at the moment it is three thousand
miles away, and yet this Nation is suffering the
kind of grave economic derangement that we would
suffer if a hostile army was on our own shores. We
have accomplished very little. We have suffered
very much. Both the failure in accomplishment and
the amount of avoidable suffering are due to the
resolute refusal of our Government to prepare in
advance and to its fatuous persistence in the policy
of watchful waiting.

Doubtless part of the present trouble in connec
tion with coal is due to unwisdom in the price-fixing
of bituminous coal. Doubtless part of it is due to the
railway congestion, which in its turn is due to the
complete lack of system and consequent chaos due
to suddenly imposing on well-meaning, stodgy gov
ernment officials of average capacity the duty of
dealing in a tremendous hurry with a situation of
unprecedented size, complexity, and importance,
but the temporary causes are all secondary to the
great cause of complete failure to prepare in advance.

Our economic unpreparedness is just as complete
as our military unpreparedness and is one of the
chief factors therein. We are now paying bitterly for
the fact that two and three years ago it was deemed
politically wise to shape our governmental policy
along the lines of " Watchful waiting " and " He
kept us out of war."

THE FRUITS OF WATCHFUL WAITING 91

If three years ago we had begun in good faith and
earnestly to prepare, and if, when the Lusitania was
sunk, we had acted as precisely as we did act with no
more provocation in February, last, this war would
now have been over. An immense amount of blood
shed would have been spared and the danger of
German militarism would have been forever averted.
In such case we would have greatly developed the
trained administrators and the coherent system
necessary to deal wisely with the economic no less
than the military features of a great war. Our re
fusal to prepare in advance and our fatuous accept
ance of rhetorical platitudes as a substitute for
preparations have resulted in our present military
impotence and profound and far-reaching economic
derangement. The profound business distrust, the
unrest of labor, the coal famine, the congestion of
traffic, and the shutting down of industries at the
time when it is most important that production
should be speeded to the highest point, all are due
primarily to the refusal to face facts during the first
two years and a half of the World War and the seeth
ing welter of inefficiency and confusion in which the
policy of watchful waiting finally plunged us. Nine
tenths of wisdom is being wise in time. All far-
sighted patriots most earnestly hope that this
Nation will learn the bitter lesson and that never
again will we be caught so shamefully unprepared,
spiritually, economically, and from the military
standpoint as has been the case in the year that is
now passing.

92 . ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

TELL THE TRUTH
JANUARY 21, 1918

NEARLY a year has passed since, on February 3, by
formally breaking relations with Germany, we re
luctantly admitted that she had gone to war with us.
During that year it has been incessantly insisted that
it was unpatriotic under any consideration to tell
an unpleasant truth or to point out a governmental
shortcoming. The result has not been happy.

The famous war correspondent, Mr. Caspar
Whitney, has returned from the front so that he
might avoid our fatuous and sinister censorship,
and tell our people the truth about our army in
France. He shows that this army, which, Secretary
Baker had just assured our people, was admirably
equipped, in reality had no cannon or machine guns
except those it had borrowed from the hard-pressed
French; that there was a lamentable shortage of
shoes; that the motor cars were poor; that we had
no airplanes. From another source it appeared that
many thousand coffins had been sent over. Our troops
had no shoes, but they had plenty of coffins. Their
ammunition was defective, and they had neither can
non nor auto rifles; but they had plenty of coffins.

At the same time the death of gallant Major
Gardner from pneumonia called sharp attention to
the evil health conditions in most of our home train
ing camps, and the Senate investigating committee
showed a really appalling slackness and inefficiency in

; CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM 93

the management of the War Department under Mr.
Baker. There is no particular reason to blame Mr.
Baker; he did not appoint himself; he did not seek the
office. Logwood cannon and wooden auto rifles are
mostly incidental features of the inevitable outcome.

All this was done in the face of repeated and ex
plicit warnings from the best authority. Major-
General Leonard Wood told the military committee
of the Senate and of the House in detail about our
shortcomings two years ago, and again one year ago.
The Administration not only refused to remedy
these shortcomings, but has spitefully punished
General Wood ever since.

Criticism should be both truthful and construc
tive. I have told not the whole truth, but the mini
mum truth absolutely necessary in order that we
may, before it is too late, speed up the war, and in
order that we may insist on the passage of the
Chamberlain Bill, so that never again may we be
caught utterly and shamefully unprepared. Let us
insist that the truth be told. The truth only harms
weaklings. The American people wish the truth,
and can stand the truth.

JUSTIFICATION OF CONSTRUCTIVE
CRITICISM

JANUARY 28, 1918

SENATOR CHAMBERLAIN and his excellent committee
have already seen the justification of their investiga-

94 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

tion. They have forced the appointment of Mr.
Stettinius, a trained and capable expert, as head of
the war supplies purchasing department. The fact
that the appointment is made in order to obviate
the need of following Senator Chamberlain's more
thoroughgoing programme does not alter the fact
that it represents a certain advance and that this
advance is primarily due to the investigation by
Senator Chamberlain's committee. It is a striking
tribute to the necessity for and the good results of
that investigation.

The investigation has been wholly non-partisan.
It has been conducted with an eye single to the needs
of the army and of our country. Senator Cham
berlain is a Democrat, just as Secretary Baker is a
Democrat. The committee has fearlessly exposed
very grave abuses and shortcomings and has taken
constructive action to remedy them. Secretary
Baker's testimony shows that, to use the language of
Senator Chamberlain, the President has been misled
as to the facts. His statements as to the satisfactory
condition of things in the camps are not in accord
with the facts. It is, of course, exceedingly difficult
to get testimony from army officers because they
have vividly before their eyes the signal punishment
inflicted by the Administration on General Wood for
fearlessly telling the truth, and those of us who have
examined conditions and know how bad they are
cannot give our authorities in many cases because
we will not expose good officers to punishment in
order to save ourselves from contradiction.

CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM 95

But certain vitally important facts are easily
attainable. At the very time that Secretary Baker
was testifying that the army had enough rifles, the
governor of Mississippi in the public press on Janu
ary 17 stated that he had been helpless to prevent
the burning alive of a negro because the home guards
had no rifles and because " there are over five hun
dred national guardsmen at Camp Jackson, but
they are equally helpless because they have no
rifles." Many deficiencies can be covered up or their
existence denied, but some cannot thus be concealed.
Any one can see the wooden cannon and wooden
machine guns in the training camps, every one knows
that our army at the front has French cannon and
French machine guns. Will not Secretary Baker
state frankly when our own cannon and machine
guns will be ready? After one year of war we have
none. Must we wait another year before getting
them? Caspar Whitney, a responsible man, has
stated lamentable shortcomings of our army at the
front. Will not the Secretary advise us what steps
he has taken to investigate this statement and
remedy the shortcomings?

The appointment of Mr. Stettinius is a good thing,
but it does not represent even a half step toward
bringing order out of the administrative chaos at
Washington. Drastic action is needed to secure a
plan providing for coordination, responsibility and
efficiency, and above all, for securing the right men
to administer the plan.

96 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

SECRETARY BAKER'S GENERAL DENIAL
FEBRUARY 2, 1918

SECRETARY BAKER'S denial of any serious short
comings in the administration of the War Depart
ment comes under several heads. Part of it is
prophecy, which we all hope will turn out to be
justified. Part of it is explanation or denials of facts,
as to which it is easy to get first-hand information.
With this part I shall deal in my next editorial.
Part of it relates to allegations as to which it is al
most impossible to get first-hand information except
from officers whose names cannot be quoted, because
this would probably entail punishment upon them.
It is with this part that I now deal.

General Wood two years ago, before the congres
sional committee, and again one year ago, before the
congressional committee, set forth in detail our un-
preparedness. Every fact he stated has proved to
be true and to be but a small part of the truth. Yet
he has been singled out for punishment because of
thus having told Congress the truth, and this al
though we and our allies are now paying dearly for
our failure to act on the truth which he thus told.
Under such conditions it is impossible to make public
the names of the officers and enlisted men through
whom we occasionally learn of abuses. Neverthe
less, it is imperative to try to correct the abuses. If
the Administration had not punished General Wood
for telling the truth, the complaints would be at once

SECRETARY BAKER'S GENERAL DENIAL 97

laid before the department and the wrongs remedied.
Under existing conditions it is imperative to call pub
lic attention to them.

A major-general informed me in October that he
had one hundred rifles for twenty thousand men, and
most strongly felt that these men should not have
been brought to the camp until the hospitals,
barracks, heating arrangements, clothes, and arms
were ready for them. Another major-general told
me, in explanation of the shortage of supplies abroad,
that one shipload of big coast defense guns had to be
returned because when they reached France it was
discovered that there were no carriages for them.
Hundreds of officers and non-commissioned officers
have told me of lack of overcoats, of winter under
clothing, of heavy socks. One quartermaster, being
unable otherwise to get woolen gloves for the men in
cold weather, finally got them from the Red Cross
and was officially reprimanded for so doing. Two
officers informed me that when in France there was
a shortage of shoes. They were told it was due to a
shipment of coffins, one being told that they were
not regular coffins, but boxes containing grave-
clothes. The newspaper correspondents repeatedly
have told of the shortage of shoes, one recent state
ment being that a shipment of clay pigeons, not
coffins, was sent over, while Mr. Caspar Whitney
recites that the surplusage was a large shipment of
hospital cots. At any rate, the shortage of shoes is
unquestioned, whether their places were taken by
coffins, clay pigeons, or hospital cots. A leading

98 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

New York business man has just written me of the
complete lack of hospital and medical facilities in
one camp. The superintendent of a Bible teachers'
training school writes that his son volunteered,
leaving a wife and two little children; that his pay
was over a month in arrears, and that at Christmas
time he wrote as follows:

We have not yet received our November pay. At this
time of the year the boys don't want it for themselves; they
want to send some little thing home to their mothers or wives
or sweethearts, and in lots of cases to their children, to whom
just a little something from daddy means so much. Yet even
that little pleasure is denied us. Can you not bring this to the
attention of the people who are supporting this Government?

I have received many hundreds such appeals. To
give the names of the writers would insure their
punishment. To pay no heed to their appeals means
that the abuses go unremedied. Doubtless an occa
sional informant is in error in his statement. But
Senator Chamberlain's speech and the testimony
taken before his committee prove that the important
statements I have made during the last few months
as to the shortcomings in our army have been more
than warranted by the facts.

LET GEORGE SPEED UP THE WAR
FEBRUARY 3, 1918

IN my last editorial I spoke of the things of which
Secretary Baker explicitly or implicitly denies the
existence, in justifying the Administration for the
military delay and shortcomings that have marked

LET GEORGE SPEED UP THE WAR 99

our entry into war. But as to the major facts there
is no room for denial. As to these Secretary Baker
falls back on the comfortable doctrine that all our
shortcomings are of no consequence because they
are made good anyhow by the efforts of our allies —
who, by the way, with preposterous silliness, are
in official circles merely termed our associates.
Secretary Baker explains that, although our forces
in France have no field artillery or auto rifles, this
is of no consequence because the French love to give
us artillery and auto rifles. He explains that the
greatest German offensive movement of the war is
about to take place, an offensive movement which,
if successful, means that we have lost the war, and
he adds that we can trust England and France to
repel this offensive. This is a naked statement that
we are to let George do it. We are to announce that
after being at war just a year our delays have been
so great that we are almost negligible in the military
sense and that we must trust to our allies to speed up
the war.

This verifies the prediction of von Hindenburg
and von Tirpitz that it would take us eighteen
months to become a real factor in the war. Ameri
cans laughed at this statement, but the ruthless and
brutal and intelligent Germans were right and our
own soft sentimentalities were their efficient allies.
We are in the position of letting George speed up
the war. Are the citizens of a proud and high-
spirited Nation to be content with such a position?

Our major shortcomings can neither be concealed

ioo ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

nor denied. In October I personally saw thousands
of infantrymen drilling with sticks. In December I
still saw artillerymen with sticks instead of rifles. A
month ago most of the cannon in the national army
camps, which I saw, were made of logs or of sections
of telegraph poles and all the machine guns I saw
were wooden dummies. The daily press has re
peatedly published photos of these wooden rifles,
cannon, and machine guns. Secretary Baker cannot
deny this nor can he deny that in modern war an
army without artillery is helpless. We are now
getting a small number of machine guns. We are
turning some heavy coast guns into field artillery,
but as yet gallant General Pershing and his gallant
men in France have to trust to the French for ar
tillery and machine guns and war planes, and, thanks
to our dawdling and indecision, we have an utterly
insufficient number of cargo ships.

We have been at war a year. In April Congress
stated that Germany had already committed re
peated acts of war against us and that our own dec
laration of war was formal. It was then too late
to undo the criminal mischief caused by our refusal
to prepare during the preceding two and a half
years, but we aggravated the damage immensely by
our delays and follies. If we had exercised reason
able energy we would in six months have achieved
more than we have actually achieved in a year. The
least we can do now is to speed up the war ourselves.
Let us insist that this be the end toward which with
all our energy we now strive.

LET UNCLE SAM GET INTO THE GAME

FEBRUARY 5, 1918

No one can tell how long this war will last. It may
last three years more, and we should prepare accord
ingly. But it may close this year, and it is unpardon
able of us not to act with such speed as to make our
help available in substantial form at once. Uncle
Sam must not be put in the position of the sub, who
only gets into the game just before the whistle
blows. Above all, he must not so act as to rouse
suspicion that this attitude is due to deliberate
shirking on his part.

The prime aid in getting Uncle Sam into the game
has come from the men who, in order to achieve this
object, have truthfully set forth the unpleasant facts
about our delay, military inefficiency, and total un-
preparedness. The critics of these men have been
either unwise or insincere. The most fatuous form
of objection to such truth-telling is the assertion that
it tends to prolong the war. It is the only thing that
will shorten the war. Suppression of the truth as the
habitual governmental policy has been successful in
preventing our people from realizing our mistakes
and even more successful in preventing their remedy.

An excellent example of this policy of falsehood is
furnished in a letter from a news agency offering to
various newspapers cartoons assailing me because I
had " criticized our unprepared ness and urged an
immediate movement toward universal obligatory
military training,'* the cartoonist saying that I had

ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

said that I had seen artillerymen drilling with
" wooden guns made from pieces of telegraph poles. "
The writer admitted this, but stated that " these
wooden imitations were as efficient for the purposes
of learning as the real guns.'* I suppose that this
particular champion of military inefficiency would
believe that a rifle team could train for a champion
ship match with dummy rifles of wood.

Every important criticism made of our military
unpreparedness and inefficiency during the past six
months, and indeed during the preceding three years,
has been proved true and in no case has there been
correction of the abuse until it was exposed. General
Pershing has just written home a scathing indict
ment of the military shortcomings of our higher
officers abroad. This is after we have been at war a
year, and it is directly due to the character of both
the civilian and the military control that has been
exercised from the swivel chairs of the War Depart
ment during this year.

Our duty is solely to the country and to every
official high or low precisely to the extent to which
he loyally, disinterestedly, and efficiently serves the
country. Let us get behind the United States. Let
us think only of our patriotic duty. I care not a rap
for politics at such a time as this. I supported Sen
ator Chamberlain, my political and to some extent
my personal opponent in the past, because on the
great issue now up he served the country. I sup
ported General Crowder, of whose politics I know
nothing and care less, because he served the country.
Stand behind America.

CONSERVATION IS IMPORTANT 103

CONSERVATION IS IMPORTANT AND
PRODUCTION IS MORE IMPORTANT

FEBRUARY 15, 1918

IT is very important that we should conserve many
things, but especially food. It is, however, very
much more important that we shall produce the
food in order to conserve it. The governmental
attitude toward production during the past year
has been, at points, very unwise. There has not
only been failure to encourage producing the one
thing vitally necessary to this Nation at this time,
but there has been at times, by unwise price-fixing,
a direct discouragement of producing.

We have suffered severely during this winter be
cause of this attitude in the matter of coal produc
tion. One of the factors in producing the misery and
discomfort, especially among people of limited means
during the severe weather of the last few months,
was the improperly low price rate established last
summer, and the uncertain and contradictory atti
tude of the Government on the question of coal
production.

But important though all production is, the pro
duction of food, the production which we owe to the
farmer, is the most important of all. This country
needs more food. Its allies need more food. Only
the farmer can give the food. It is nonsense to
expect him to produce it unless he can make his
livelihood by so doing. The farmer is thoroughly

104 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

patriotic; he stands ready now as he has stood
ready in every crisis of the Nation, pledged to do his
full duty, and a little more than his duty. But he
makes his livelihood by producing what is essential
to the livelihood of the rest of us. He cannot produce
unless he makes his livelihood. Not a step should
be taken that interferes with his welfare, save after
such wise and cautious inquiry as to make us certain
that the step is necessary.

We should do whatever is necessary to help the
farmer produce the maximum of food at this time.
Moreover, every step we take should be conditioned
upon securing the farmer's permanent well-being.
The city man is often utterly ignorant of the work
and of the needs of the man who lives in the open
country. The working-man and the business man
who growl about one another are a little apt to join
in growling about the farmer. The city Socialist is
more utterly ignorant of the farmer than any other
human being. Last fall the Socialist campaign in
New York had for one of its battle cries the an
nouncement that they intended to make the farmer
give them five-cent milk. Apparently the detail
that the farmer had to feed the cows and take care
of them struck them as unworthy of notice.

The farmer must have labor. But there must be
no importation of Chinese or any other cheap labor,
whether permanent or temporary. The emergency
need of farm labor for planting and harvesting can
be met at this time just as the need for the national
army was met. The farmer must have first-class

THE PEOPLE'S WAR 105

prices for his products. No price-fixing at his ex
pense must be gone into without the clearest ne
cessity being shown, and above all there must be no
repetition of the folly that marked the dealing with
the fuel situation last summer. The farmer must
have what capital he needs at a rate of interest not
excessive, in order to plant and reap his crop this
year. The aid can be given to groups of farmers who
underwrite one another, so to speak, and, of course,
if he can be given it by private means, so much the
better. If that is impossible, then the Government
should act. We should profit by the admirable
California example to see that the help is given only
to the man who is a real farmer and can really make
use of it, but that it is extended in such a way as to
be of genuine and material benefit.

This is the immediate need, and let us treat meet
ing this need as the opening wedge of a policy de
signed to prevent the growth of tenant farms at the
expense of the farm owner who tills his own soil,
and designed also to put a premium upon the per
manent prosperity of the small farmer as compared
with the big landowner.

THE PEOPLE'S WAR

FEBRUARY 26, 1918

IT is not agreeable to keep insisting on the need of
doing better than we have done. It is not agreeable
to keep pointing out our shortcomings, but to do so

106 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

is the only way of remedying them and of securing
better action in the future.

The people, some of them well-meaning, some of
them anything but well-meaning, who denounce
criticism and who object to telling the minimum of
truth necessary to correct our faults, are the efficient
allies of Germany and the foes of the United States.
Actual events have shown that fatuous complacency
on the part of our officials has resulted in inefficiency
and delay which would have meant overwhelming
disaster to this Nation if we had not been protected
by the fleets and armies of England and France.

For the first eleven months of this war the ineffi
ciency at vital points in our Government, notably in
the matter of shipping and in the management of
the War Department, was worse than anything
Russia herself has ever seen. Nearly thirteen months
have now passed since Germany went to war with us
and we broke relations with Germany and after
wards timidly and helplessly drifted stern foremost
into what we styled a " formal " state of war. The
Russo-Japanese War likewise began before there
was any formal declaration of war. It only lasted
sixteen months. We have been accustomed to hold
out Russia's action during that sixteen months as a
miracle of inefficiency, but she showed herself far
less inefficient than we have shown ourselves during
the thirteen months that have just passed, and, of
course, there was nothing in her conduct quite as
bad as our criminal folly in utterly failing in any
shape or way to prepare during the two and a half

THE PEOPLE'S WAR 107

previous years. There is just one difference between
the two cases. Russia did not have England and
France to protect her from the effects of her folly.
That we have been at liberty to indulge in our folly
with impunity is due only to the fact that England
and France have protected us with the blood of their
bravest, while we have refused to prepare and then
delayed and blundered and fatuously boasted after
the war came on. Every pro-German, of course,
heartily applauds these blunders and delays and
bitterly objects to their being pointed out, but every
American with a particle of patriotism in him, every
American proud of his country, should learn the
bitter lesson and should resolve that never again
will we permit our great Nation to be put in such an
ignoble position.

Our worst failure, of course, has been our failure
to grapple with the shipping problem. But there
have been many such failures. One was the failure
to equip Pershing's army. I do not believe a more
gallant little army than Pershing's was ever sent
abroad, but without abundant artillery, machine
guns, and airplanes a modern army is as helpless as
if its men were armed only with stone-headed axes.
Pershing's army has only the field artillery, machine
guns, and airplanes that the French have given it,
and this, although since our troops landed last June,
a longer time has elapsed than covered the whole
Franco-Prussian War. As regards the field artillery,
the fault is due to the blind refusal of the Govern
ment to prepare in advance to build the guns. As

io8 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

regards the machine guns and auto rifles, the fault
is due to our Government's refusal during the last
thirteen months to utilize the Lewis gun.

Steps have been taken to remedy some of the
worst of these evils in the War Department. They
have been taken only and purely because of public
criticism of them and because of the fearless exposure
of inefficiency of Senator Chamberlain and his
colleagues of the Senate investigating committee.
Until this committee began its labor, the War De
partment had striven to conceal and had refused
to remedy its inefficiency, blundering, and delay.
There has been some improvement, and this im
provement is due solely to the Senate committee.

This is the people's war. It is not the President's
war any more than it is Congress's war. It is Amer
ica's war. We are in honor bound in conducting it
to stand by every official who does well and against
every official who fails to do well. Any other attitude
is a servile attitude. Congress on the whole has
done well. Until Congress finally asserted itself
the executive branch of the Government did very
badly. If Congress follows the lead outlined in the
Chamberlain Bill, it will continue to do well; if it
follows the lead outlined in Senator Overman's
Bill, it will condone the inefficiency of the past and
put a premium upon inefficiency in the future.
Congress must not shirk its duty to the people. Let
the machinery of the Government be modernized
and above all let this machinery be manned by men
of distinguished and demonstrated ability who will

THE FRUITS OF FIFTY-FIFTY LOYALTY 109

make the governmental conduct efficient instead of
grossly inefficient, as it was during the first year of
the war.

Let us quit being content with feeble mediocrity.
Let us demand really first-class efficiency in both
preparation and performance. That is the only way
to do what we must do and see this war through to
a triumphant conclusion.

THE FRUITS OF FIFTY-FIFTY LOYALTY

MARCH 2, 1918

A CAPTAIN in the regular army of the United States
has just been justly sentenced to twenty-five years'
imprisonment for trying to combine loyalty to this
country with loyalty to Germany. He was born here
of German parents. In Germany, for such an of
fense, he would have been instantly shot or hung.
And in Germany organizations and newspapers
responsible for causing such action would be in
stantly suppressed and their organizers and editors
heavily punished.

The unfortunate army officer in question is paying
the penalty for heeding such organizations as the
German-American Alliance. Mr. Gustavus Ohlinger
has put before Congress facts concerning the past
actions and activities of this organization which
warrant and require its instant suppression. Its
leaders have sometimes been men who practiced a
fifty-fifty loyalty between this country and Germany

I io ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

and sometimes men all of whose loyalty was for
Germany and all whose enmity was for the nation
ality, ideals, and language of the American people.
It is an outrage that such an organization should
be permitted longer to exist. Congress should act
against it at once and the Department of Justice
should abandon its slack attitude toward German
spies and should so act as to convince our enemies
that Uncle Sam is not a timid and soft-headed fool,
and that hereafter German spies, dynamiters, and
murderers who ply their trade here will do so at the
risk of their necks.

Teaching German in the public schools should be
prohibited. German language newspapers should
have a time limit act, after which it should not be
lawful to publish them save in English. A few of
their newspapers have a most honorable past and
are doing excellent work in the present. A number
of English language newspapers have preached moral
treason to the American people, often covering it by
zeal in denouncing all honest and truthful men who
point out the delays and inefficiencies in govern
ment, actions which make those responsible for
them enemies of the American people and aids to
Germany; but moral treason in English is at least
open, whereas in a foreign language it is hidden.
Moral treason is not necessarily legal treason, but
it may be as dangerous, and from senators to school
teachers, all public servants who deal in it should
promptly be removed from office.

The organizations, newspapers, and public serv-

QUIT TALKING PEACE. in

ants who thus betray the honor of America in the
interest of Germany wrong all their fellow citizens.
But above all they cruelly wrong those loyal Ameri
cans, the great majority of our citizens who are in
whole or in part of German blood. The loyal major
ity should lend their utmost energies to securing the
condign and summary punishment of the disloyal
minority of Americans of German blood who are a
disgrace and a menace to this country. Gustavus
Ohlinger is an admirable example of the Americans
in whole or in part of German blood who is an
American and nothing else. All good Americans,
and especially all good Americans of German blood,
should actively and heartily back him. There is no
room in this country for fifty-fifty Americanism.

QUIT TALKING PEACE

MARCH 5, 1918

THE experience of Trotzky, Lenine, and the other
Bolshevist leaders in their peace negotiations with
Germany ought to be illuminating to our own people.
Germany encouraged them to enter peace negotia
tions, spoke fairly to them, got them committed to
the abandonment of their allies, used them to de
moralize Russia and make it impossible for her to
organize effective resistance, and then threw them
over, instantly invaded their land, and now holds a
part of Russia.

Let our people take warning and insist that all

112 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

peace talk cease forthwith. Germany is the enemy
of humanity generally and in a special sense is the
enemy of the United States. She has introduced
into warfare horrors which not another civilized
nation would have dreamed of using. Her conduct
toward Belgium stands out on the high peak of in
famy. She has murdered innocent women and
children wholesale on the high seas and hundreds of
Americans have thus been slain. She has organized
murder, rape, robbery, and devastation on a gigantic
scale in every conquered territory. Our own sons
and brothers are at this moment facing death by the
awful torture of the poison gas because Germany has
invented methods of warfare more cruel than those
of the Dark Ages. Peace on equal terms with such
a foe would mean black shame in the present and the
certainty of renewed and wholesale war in the future.
To talk peace means to puzzle the ignorant and
to weaken the will of even the stout-hearted. It is
hailed with evil joy by all the men in this country
who have opposed war and have wished us to sub
mit tamely to German brutality. When there comes
from Washington an announcement about peace
terms which the pacifists and pro-Germans are able
to interpret as favorable to their views, the Hearst
papers gleefully champion it as undoing the effect of
previous declarations that we are in this war to the
end, and Mr. Hillquit, the New York mayoralty can
didate of the Germanized Socialists and the pacifists,
expresses his hearty approval and says that the
President has now taken his (Mr. Hillquit's) position.

ENEMIES OF LOYAL AMERICANS 113

Let us quit talking peace with a foe who, if we
entered into peace negotiations, would, according to
his ability, trick us as he has already tricked the
Bolsheviki of Russia. Let us not put ourselves on
the moral and intellectual level of Trotzky and
Lenine. Every peace utterance pleases the Germans,
renders our allies uneasy, strengthens the pacifists,
the pro-Germans, and the various seditious elements
in our own country, and bewilders, disheartens, and
weakens our honest citizens.

The time when words about peace were useful
passed a very long time ago. Let us now merely
announce that we are in this war to fight until Ger
many is beaten to her knees. Then let us bend our
entire energy to building ships and more ships'at the
greatest possible speed and putting a couple of
million men on the firing line at the earliest possible
moment. That is the effective way to bring a just
and lasting peace.

THE WORST ENEMIES OF CERTAIN

LOYAL AMERICANS

MARCH 10, 1918

THE army and navy of the United States in the
training camps, on the high seas, and at the battle
front, are at this moment proving themselves the
most potent agencies of Americanism that our
country contains. All good Americans should feel a
peculiar pride in the fine and gallant loyalty with
which the great majority of the Americans of Ger-

114 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

man descent have come forward to do their part to
win this war against the brutal and merciless tyr
anny of the Prussianized Germany of the Hohen-
zollerns. As regards able-bodied men, this service
must be rendered in the army, for in war-time no
other form of activity can be accepted as a substitute
for the fighting work of the fighting man.

I continually meet officers from the front. A cap
tain recently out of the trenches called on me the
other day. His father and mother were born in
Germany. He himself, after going through a small
American college, had spent three years at Heidel
berg. He mentioned that one of his lieutenants was
born in Norway, and that another was of Irish
parentage, and then continued by saying that al
ready his brief experience of the war had given him
a horror of the Germany of to-day, had convinced
him that our only safety lay in the complete Ameri
canization of all our people and therefore in the in
sistence that English should be the only language of
this country and the only language taught in any
primary school, and that he regarded such organiza
tions as the German-American Alliance as guilty of
moral treason to America as the worst and most
dangerous foes of good Americans of German blood,
and as richly deserving to be promptly suppressed
and punished.

An officer from our destroyer squadron across the
seas informed me that our destroyers had 'accounted
for nearly a score of submarines; that about a
quarter of their crews were, as indicated by their

GIRD UP OUR LOINS 115

names, of German descent, but straight-out Ameri
cans and nothing else; that his own best gun-pointer
was named Fritz Heinz ; and that their keenest indig
nation was reserved for the German officials in Ger
many and the German-American Alliance in America
whose actions tended to make a wall between them
and their fellow Americans and who inflicted the
most cruel wrong possible upon them by exciting
among other Americans an indiscriminate distrust
and anger toward all men of German origin.

These men were absolutely right. We speak in the
name of all good Americans and on behalf of Fritz
and Adolph and Gustav exactly as on behalf of Bill
and Harry and Edward, when we demand the
prompt suppression of the German-American Alli
ance and of all similar organizations. The German
blood is exactly as good as any other blood, but ex
actly as, under the corroding influence of slavery,
masses of Americans of the best blood once became
the enemies of the Union and of humanity, so under
the debasing and brutalizing influence of the kultur
of the last fifty years, Germany has become the cruel
and treacherous enemy of the United States and of
all the other liberty-loving nations of mankind.

GIRD UP OUR LOINS

MARCH 16, 1918

THE Bible warns us to gird up our loins if we wish to
win a race. Most certainly we cannot expect to do
well in the present struggle unless we bend every

ii6 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

energy to the task and exercise all our forethought
in instant preparation.

Russia's betrayal of the Allied cause under the
foolish and iniquitous lead of the Bolsheviki has been
a betrayal of the United States and of the cause of
liberty and democracy and justice throughout the
world. Above all, it has been a betrayal of Russia
herself, and it has, of course, absolved us of every
obligation to her. Our duty is to stand by England
and France and Belgium and Serbia, who have stood
by us. Russia has ruined herself in Germany's in
terest, and has immensely increased the peril for the
rest of us. This simply means that we ought to re
double our effort. We should be building the cargo
ships in three eight-hour shift days and should treat
work on them as being equivalent to work in the
army. We should speed to the utmost the work on
the cannon and flying machines so that our army
may cease having to rely on the French for artillery
.and airplanes. The army should copy the wisdom
of the navy in regard to the Lewis auto rifle and
should use this weapon to the utmost limit now, even
although it prove wise later to supersede it with the
Browning weapon.

We ought at once to introduce obligatory uni
versal military training for our young men between
nineteen and twenty-one. They would not be sent
to war until they were twenty-one. This would be
the most effective step in preparing to get ready an
army of five million men. Such an army would be
relatively no larger than the four hundred thousand

BOLSHEVIKI AT HOME AND ABROAD 117

men which gallant Canada, to her eternal honor, has
already raised. Let us begin now to prepare our
selves for a three years' war.

If we had prepared as we ought to have done dur
ing the two and a half years before we at last reluc
tantly faced our duty and went to war, we would
have put a couple of million of fighting men into
Europe last June. Russia would never have broken,
and in all probability the war would have ended at
once with almost no fighting. There is no use in
crying over the enormous quantities of milk we have
already spilled, unless it becomes necessary in order
to prevent us from continuing to spill it in the
present and future. Failure to prepare as above out
lined may cause us as much trouble in the future as
our past failure to prepare has already caused us.
General Pershing's gallant little army has already
made the entire United States its debtor. But it is
not as yet as important a military factor as the army
of Belgium or of Portugal or of Serbia. Let us back
it up and equip it and reenforce it to the utmost of
our strength. Let us quit talking peace and bend
all our energies to winning the war, and thereby
winning the only kind of peace that will be safe,
honorable, and lasting.

BOLSHEVIKI AT HOME AND ABROAD
MARCH 19, 1918

THE answer of the Bolsheviki to the President's
message was an example of mean and studied im-

ii8 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

pertinence. There was no gratitude, no apology for
their betrayal of America and of the cause of liberty,
and no expression of hostility to their German
masters, but there was a gratuitous and insulting
expression for a class war in America against what
the Bolsheviki with ignorant folly speak of as
capitalism. A couple of days afterward the Bol
shevist authorities definitely concluded with Ger
many their peace of ignominy and treachery.

There is now no possible reason for our Govern
ment to draw the sharp distinction they have drawn
between the Bolsheviki abroad and the Bolsheviki
at home. The Government is prosecuting Victor
Berger and has suppressed the paper of Max East
man. But Berger and Eastman are essentially the
same as Lenine and Trotzky. All four have played
Germany's game; all four have been the enemies of
the cause of the United States and of liberty. The
utter ruin which the Bolsheviki have brought on
Russia offers an illuminating example of the destruc
tion which would befall the United States if it ever
submitted to the leadership of men like Messrs.
Hillquit, Townley, Haywood, and Berger.

We have had many evil capitalists in the United
States, but on the whole the worst capitalists could
not do the permanent damage to the farmers and
working-men in America which these foreign and
native Bolsheviki would do if they had the power.
Our people should keep steadily in mind that the
Russian Bolsheviki have not attacked the big Rus
sian capitalists who were in alliance with the autoc-

BOLSHEVIKI AT HOME AND ABROAD 119

racy of the Romanoffs and they have been the tools,
paid or unpaid, of the German militarists and capi
talists. They have spent their energies in attacking
the revolutionists who overthrew the Romanoffs and
in persecuting the peasants who have become small
farmers and the working-men who are skilled me
chanics and the small shopkeepers. They hate and
envy those thrifty and self-respecting workers who
in this country make up the great majority of our
people and who are our most typical and character
istic Americans.

The Bolsheviki have concluded a peace with
Germany which includes handing back to the Turks,
or, in other words, plunging back into brutal sav
agery, a district in Asia in which there are multitudes
of Armenians and other Christians. Our Govern
ment has been derelict in its duty to the Armenians,
to the Christians of Syria and to the Jews of Pales
tine, by its failure to declare war on Turkey. It is a
grave error to coddle the Bolsheviki and support
them in any way against our allies unless we are
also willing fearlessly to condemn their betrayal of
us and of the Allied cause, and unless we are ready
to war to the end against both Germany and Turkey
in order to rescue from tyranny and to give inde
pendence to the unfortunate people whom the Bol
sheviki have abandoned to a cruel fate.

120 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

THE FRUITS OF OUR DELAY

MARCH 26, 1918

THE shameful betrayal of the Allies' cause by the
Russian Bolshevists and the delay and incompetence
of the American Government have given the Ger
mans a free hand for their drive against the British
army. England is at this moment fighting our
battles just as much as she is fighting her own, yet,
although three years have passed since the Lusitania
was sunk and a year since Congress declared that we
had " formally " entered the war, America is still
- merely an onlooker.

We owe this ignoble position to the folly and the
procrastination of our Government and its inveter
ate tendency to substitute rhetoric for action. We
have a gallant little army across the ocean, but it is
smaller than the Belgian army. We are not holding
a greater extent of the battle front than the army of
little Portugal. We have at the front no airplanes
or field artillery and very few machine guns except
those we have gotten from the French. Even the
clothes of our troops are mainly obtained from the
English. Yet we are the richest nation and one of the
most populous nations on the earth.

Our Government is responsible for our dreadful
shortcomings, but the responsibility is shared by all
the foolish creatures who have willfully blinded
themselves to these shortcomings and have clamored
against the faithful public servants, like Senator

THE FRUITS OF OUR DELAY 121

Chamberlain, who laid bare the shortcomings for the
purpose of remedying them. The truly patriotic men
in this crisis have been the men who have fearlessly
told the truth in order to speed up the war. The
other men who have decried the truth-telling as
" crying over spilt milk " have been profoundly un
patriotic. It was the failure to point out how much
milk had been spilt which was primarily responsible
for the failure to stop further spilling of milk.

In the face of the terrible battle which our English
allies are now waging, and in view of the fact that
for three years and a half we have owed our safety to
the British fleet and to the French spirit typified by
Premier Clemenceau, let the American people now
demand that the Government recognize the need of
instant and efficient action. Let our Government
quit flirting with the Bolshevists at home and
abroad. Let it declare war on Turkey at once. Let
it acknowledge its dreadful failures and delays and
henceforth act with all possible speed. Let it man
fully endeavor to make our weight felt in the war
this year. Let it stop boasting about the future and
begin to act in the present.

Let the Government use common sense. It has
talked magnificently about having twenty thousand
airplanes ready in June, but it has not one American
war plane at the front to-day. Let it quit boasting
and act. Let it push the shipping programme by
night and day. Let it give France and England the
men they so sorely need.

Our Government has delayed until the Allies have

122 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

been brought to the brink of destruction. Let it act
at once lest the chance for action pass completely by.

HOW THE HUN EARNS HIS TITLE

MARCH 31, 1918

THE CURSE OF THE SYSTEM
BY D. THOMAS CURTIN

A SCENE in Schabatz, when the Austro-Hungarians attempted
to flank Belgrade in early August, 1914, has seared itself into
my memory. I was in the shambles of an overgrown village.
The blood of both armies flowed in the streets and the wine
from broken casks and bottles flowed in the cellars, soldiers
walking in it up to their knees.

The street was deserted save for an Unteroffizier who was
passing. An old woman, bent and shriveled, her white locks
escaping the yellow sash around her head, tottered from a
whitewashed mixture of mud and thatch, saw the enemy
soldier, started back, thought better of it, and sank to her
knees while she extended her bony arms for mercy. He drew
his saber — still a relic of war. " A little despicable stage
play and magnanimous pardon," I thought. I was mistaken.
The saber whistled and slashed the outstretched arms, the
woman's shriek cut me like saws and knives, and I turned
away bewildered.

I came face to face with the man a few minutes later. He
was not drunk. Nor did he look like a wild man from the hills.
He was a Viennese, the kind of man I had seen on scores of
occasions lolling in a caf6, mild and gentle as a kitten. He
looked mild and gentle now.

"Why did you do it? " I had to ask.

" She was a pig-dog Serb, an enemy of my country. I
did my duty." And he said it in a manner which showed him
satisfied in his conscience that he had done what was right.

I realize now that I had had my first war-time example of
the German system of education. The code is that anything

HOW THE HUN EARNS HIS TITLE 123

done in the name of the Fatherland is correct. A man can be
educated in such a manner that he will wipe out " crawling
verminous pests of his country " with as little compunction
as a farmer would rid his field of potato bugs.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1914, I visited the American
Hospital in Munich, a military hospital supported by contri
butions from the United States. While talking with three
men in one room I was actually saying to myself that such as
these could not be guilty of atrocities, when one of them told
me a story which forced me to change my mind.

" I was a member of a relief company marching in the
Vosges," he said. " As we were about to halt for lunch, we
came upon a French priest in a wood who was judged quickly
to be a spy by our officers. These turned him over to us and
we had great amusement after we had finished eating. I laugh
still whenever I think of it. We tied a rope around his neck
and threw it over a limb of a tree. Some comrades pulled
and up went the priest while the rest of us stood around and
jabbed him with our bayonets. ' Higher, higher! ' we shouted.
And then we had a jumping contest to see which could thrust
his bayonet highest."

The man told me the story because he thought it funny
and his eyes danced with happy recollections as he told it.

NO GUNS

General Petain, commander, French army, said: " Send guns; so that
some of us may be alive to fight by your side, when at last America is ready."

What! in France and no guns!
Have I sent forth my sons
With proud boasts of great deeds —
And fallen down at plain needs?
Who proclaimed to the world
With my banners unfurled
The dread foe will succumb,
I, America, come!

In France, and no guns!
And I 've sent forth my sons

124 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

With those wolves of the Huns at their throats,
While the Kaiser and Hindenburg gloat,
And France, stricken France,
Fills the breach, while my lance
I sent flaming with pride
Hangs behind, not beside!

In France! and no guns,

Empty hands, and my sons

Who would tear out their hearts for my fame,

Are held up to derision and shame,

Because statesmen so small

Hew out roads to a wall

While the fire bells of death

Crash souls out, and breath '

In France, and no guns!

Why, you 're worse than the Huns,

You men who are shaming my honor

When the stress of the Nation 's upon her.

With your quibbles and greed

Can the trampled be freed?

Oh, my heart 's sick with scorn,

I, America, suborned.

In France, and no guns !

Let's forever be done

With our boasts and our brags, and succumb

To the scorning before which we're dumb.

When at last France is free

And her glory acclaimed

Let none look at me,

At America, shamed.

Henrietta Keith, Minneapolis

WE live such sheltered lives here, three thousand
miles away from the war, that most of us don't even
yet realize what Germany has done and has stood

HOW THE HUN EARNS HIS TITLE 125

for in this war and what a terrible menace she is to
us and to all civilization. The other day I met a very
able writer and observer who at the outbreak of the
Great War spent many months with the German and
Austrian armies and then lived in Germany until it
became impossible for a self-respecting American
longer to stay there. He is Mr. D. Thomas Curtin.
His father was born in Ireland. He is himself a
Catholic. I mention these facts merely because they
refute the cheap and vicious falsehoods so often pro
mulgated by the pro-Germans to the effect that the
accounts of the German atrocities are due to English
propaganda.

I ask all good Americans, whatever their creed,
and I especially ask American women, to read these
two straight-forward statements by Mr. Curtin, the
account of the killing by torture of the priest who
fell into the hands of the German soldiers and the
account of the fearful brutality of an Austrian Ger
man to a poor old woman. These were not isolated
cases of brutality. They were both part of the policy
of deliberate horror, which Mr. Curtin speaks of as
" the system." All in America who have played the
game of Germany, from Hearst and the Germanized
Socialists and the German-American Alliance at one
end of the line to foolish pacifist preachers at the
other end of the line, have been, according to their
power, working to bring about the day when we
here in this country would see our own women and
helpless non-combatant men and our own children
exposed to such hideous wrongs and torture as is

126 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

described by Mr. Curtin. I very seriously ask our
people to read what Mr. Curtin says and to ponder
the full meaning of the facts he sets forth.

In the next place, I ask them to read the poem —
and it is a real poem, not merely verse — of Mrs.
Keith, a Minneapolis woman, called " No Guns."
Well-meaning, foolish people, and some people who
in ordinary relations of life are not foolish, are fond
of telling us not to point out the defects in the army,
because this encourages Germany, and because any
how it is a case of spilt milk, and there is no use of
crying over spilt milk. The answer is twofold. In
the first place, Germany knows all our shortcomings.
Inasmuch as we have wickedly refused to go to war
with Turkey and Bulgaria, we have left open ave
nues by which it is absolutely certain that Germany
gets full knowledge of everything she wishes to know
about this country. It is only our own people who
are kept in ignorance. * In the next place, as regards
the spilt-milk proposition, the trouble is that we
have kept on spilling the milk and that only by
pointing out that it has been spilled is it possible to
solder the milk cans and stop further spilling. Until
Senator Chamberlain and his committee boldly and
truthfully pointed out the evil caused by the delays
and shortcomings of the War Department, the Ad
ministration made not the slightest effort to remedy
them. Some of the more salient of these shortcom
ings have been remedied, and this fact is primarily
due to the courage and patriotism of these public
servants, Senator Chamberlain and his committee.

HOW THE HUN EARNS HIS TITLE 127

If fourteen months ago our people had been willing
to demand the truth and to listen to those who told
the truth, we would at this moment have four times
the force we now have in France ; and we would have
guns and airplanes, and auto rifles of our own make
with it; and we would have had plenty of ships to
carry our men across and to give them food and
munitions. The reason why our fighting army at the
front in France is no larger, and the reason why we
have had to get the necessary field guns, airplanes,
and auto rifles for that army from the French, is be
cause we, as a people, were not willing to insist upon
knowing the truth. It is precisely because certain
men are now telling the truth that there is reason to
hope that gradually the milk spilling will be stopped ;
that gradually we shall get the guns, the airplanes,
and auto rifles for our men, and above all the ships
that are vitally necessary. I ask the mothers of this
country whose sons are now in the army, or may go
into the army, to read and ponder this poem by a
woman, and to cast the weight of their great influ
ence in favor of demanding that every ounce of
energy we as a Nation possess be used to speed up
the war, to relieve our allies of the burden of supply
ing us with weapons of war, and to see that the
American troops abroad are furnished from this
country with American-made weapons of the highest
type.

The don't-cry-over-spilt-milk appeal represents
unpardonable wrong to America and to civilization.

128 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

THANK HEAVEN!
APRIL 2, 1918

AT last, thank Heaven, comes the news that our
little American army at the front has been put ab
solutely at the disposal of the French and English
military leaders for use of any kind in the gigantic
and terrible battle now being waged. All Americans
who are proud of the great name of America will
humbly and reverently thank Heaven that at any
rate the army we have at the front is not to remain in
the position of an onlooker, but is to be put into the
battle.

The wanton and cruel bombardment of Paris,
undertaken for no military reason and with its char
acteristic slaughter of women and children in a
church, proves that the German barbarity is as de
liberate and as infamous now as at the beginning of
the war. The Allies in this battle are fighting for
humanity and civilization. They are fighting the
battle of the United States. Any man in the United
States who at this time directly or indirectly ex
presses approval of or sympathy with Germany in
this battle or in this war, should be arrested and
either shot, hung, or imprisoned for life, according
to the gravity of his offense.

Thank Heaven that our sons and brothers are
now to stand at Armageddon. Thank Heaven that
American soldiers are now to fight in the great battle
against the bestial foe of America and of mankind.

CITIZENS OR SUBJECTS? 129

Words count for little at this time and for nothing
whatever except in so far as they are of help to the
men of deeds who are at the front.

It is these men at the front who are now mak
ing all Americans, born and unborn, forever their
debtors. They are the men who have paid with
their bodies for their soul's desire. Let no one pity
them, whatever their fate, for they have seen the
mighty days and have risen level to the need of che
mighty days. And let no one pity the wives and
mothers and fathers whose husbands and lovers and
sons now face death in battle for the mightiest of
all high causes. Our hearts are wrung with sorrow
and anxiety, but our heads are held aloft with pride.
It is a terrible thing that our loved ones should face
the great danger, but it would be a far more terrible
thing if, whatever the danger, they were not treading
the hard path of duty and honor.

CITIZENS OR SUBJECTS?

APRIL 6, 1918

IN a self-governing country the people are called
citizens. Under a despotism or autocracy the people
are called subjects. This is because in a free country
the people are themselves sovereign, while in a des
potic country the people are under a sovereign. In
the United States the people are all citizens, includ
ing its President. The rest of them are fellow citizens
of the President. In Germany the people are all

130 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

subjects of the Kaiser. They are not his fellow citi
zens, they are his subjects. This is the essential
difference between the United States and Germany,
but the difference would vanish if we now submitted
to the foolish or traitorous persons who endeavor to
make it a crime to tell the truth about the Adminis
tration when the Administration is guilty of incom
petence or other shortcomings. Such endeavor is
itself a crime against the Nation. Those who take
such an attitude are guilty of moral treason of a kind
both abject and dangerous.

Our loyalty is due entirely to the United States.
It is due to the President only and exactly to the
degree in which he efficiently serves the United
States. It is our duty to support him when he serves
the United States well. It is our duty to oppose him
when he serves it badly. This is true about Mr. Wil
son now and it has been true about all our presidents
in the past. It is our duty at all times to tell the
truth about the President and about every one else,
save in the cases where to tell the truth at the mo
ment would benefit the public enemy. Since this
war began, the suppression of the truth by and about
the Administration has been habitual. In rare cases
this has been disadvantageous to the enemy. In the
vast majority of cases it has been advantageous to
the enemy, detrimental to the American people, and
useful to the Administration only from the political,
not the patriotic, standpoint.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has just rec
ommended the passage of a law in which, among

CITIZENS OR SUBJECTS? 131

many excellent propositions to put down disloyalty,
there has been adroitly inserted a provision that any
one who uses " contemptuous or slurring language
about the President " shall be punished by imprison
ment for a long term of years and by a fine of many
thousand dollars. This proposed law is sheer treason
to the United States. Under its terms Abraham
Lincoln would have been sent to prison for what he
repeatedly said of Presidents Polk, Pierce, and Bu
chanan. Under its terms President Wilson would be
free to speak of Senator-elect Lenroot as he has
spoken, but Senator Lenroot would not be free
truthfully to answer President Wilson. It is a pro
posal to make Americans subjects instead of citizens,
It is a proposal to put the President in the position
of the Hohenzollerns and Romanoffs. Government
by the people means that the people have the right
to do their own thinking and to do their own speak
ing about their public servants. They must speak
truthfully and they must not be disloyal to the
country, and it is their highest duty by truthful
criticism to make and keep the public servants loyal
to the country.

Any truthful criticism could and would be held
by partisanship to be slurring or contemptuous. The
Delaware House of Representatives has just shown
this. It came within one vote of passing a resolution
demanding that the Department of Justice proceed
against me because, in my recent speeches in Maine,
I " severely criticized the conduct of our National
Government.*' I defy any human being to point

132 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

out a statement in that speech which was not true
and which was not patriotic, and yet the decent and
patriotic members of the Delaware legislature were
only able to secure a majority of one against the base
and servile partisanship of those who upheld the
resolution.

I believe the proposed law is unconstitutional.
If it is passed, I shall certainly give the Government
the opportunity to test its constitutionality. For
whenever the need arises I shall in the future speak
truthfully of the President in praise or in blame,
exactly as I have done in the past. When the Presi
dent in the past uttered his statements about being
too proud to fight and wishing peace without victory,
and considering that we had no special grievance
against Germany, I spoke of him as it was my high
duty to speak. Therefore, I spoke of him truthfully
and severely, and I cared nothing whether or not
timid and unpatriotic and short-sighted men said
that I spoke slurringly or contemptuously. In as far
as the President in the future endeavors to wage this
war efficiently and to secure the peace of overwhelm
ing victory, I shall heartily support him. But if he
wages it inefficiently or if he should now champion a
peace without victory, or say that we had no griev
ance against Germany, I would speak in criticism
of him precisely as I have spoken in the past. I am
an American and a free man. My loyalty is due to
the United States, and therefore it is due to the Pres
ident, the Senators, the Congressmen, and all other
public servants only and to the degree in which they
loyally and efficiently serve the United States.

WOMEN AND THE WAR 133

WOMEN AND THE WAR

APRIL 12, 1918

A KANSAS woman has just written me in part as
follows: " I have given my all, my two sons, gladly
and proudly, as volunteers to my country, for they
enlisted last August. But my heart grows sick at
the confusion and blunders and apathy. I thank The
Star for printing that poem of the Minnesota
mother. It appeals to all of us mothers who stay at
home and pray and work as we can.'*

I think more continually of such mothers of
soldiers as this Kansas woman, than I do even of the
soldiers themselves. They have high and gallant
souls. They are the spiritual heirs of the mothers
and wives of Washington's Continentals and of the
mothers and wives of the soldiers of Grant and Lee.
I am proud beyond measure that I am their fellow
countryman. In everything that I do or say, I seek
to make and to keep this land a land in which their
daughters can dwell in honorable safety and to make
our common citizenship such that both their sons
and daughters shall hold their heads high because
they are Americans.

But exactly as I revere such women, so I condemn
the women whose short-sightedness or frivolous love
of ease and vapid pleasure or whose timid fear of
danger and labor makes them fit companions for
those unworthy men whose lives represent merely
the shirking of duty. The mother who, by perpetual

134 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

complaint and lamentation about unavoidable hard
ships and risks, seeks to weaken the heart of her
soldier son stands no higher than the money-getting
or ease-loving man who dodges the draft. The
woman who cares so little for the honor of America
and the interests of civilization as now to wish a
peace without victory is no better than the men in
uniform who seek soft positions of safety among the
slickers and slackers.

The things that are best worth having in life must
be paid for whether by forethought or by toil or by
downright facing of danger. This is true in peace.
It is even more true in war. It is just as true of
women as of men.

All wise and good women and all wise and good
men abhor war. Washington and Lincoln abhorred
war. But no man or woman is either wise or good
unless he or she abhors some things even more than
war, exactly as Washington and Lincoln abhorred
them. We are none of us fit to be free men in a re
public if we are not willing to fight when the Re
public is wronged as Germany has wronged this
country. We are none of us entitled to say that we
love mankind if we are not willing to do battle
against the Turk and the German in order to right
such wrongs as have been perpetrated on Belgium
and Armenia. And we deserve to be brayed in a
mortar if we are ever again guilty of such folly as
that of which we have been guilty by our foolish
failure to prepare our strength in efficient fashion
during the last three and a half years.

TO AMERICANS OF GERMAN BLOOD 135

The women of this country who love their hus
bands and sons should realize now that only by
thorough preparedness in advance can war be
avoided, if possible, or successfully waged if it has to
come. Recently men in high position whose own
bodies are safe have stated that they are glad that
we were not prepared in advance to do our duty
when this war came. These men have purchased
their own safety and advantage by the blood of our
sons at the front. Let the women who do not wish
to see their men go up against the cannon see that
hereafter all our sons are well trained in advance.
If America's strength is fully prepared in advance,
she will in all probability never have to go to war
and will be a potent factor in preserving the peace
of justice throughout the world, and the first step
in securing such a peace is to devote all our energies
to speeding up the war until it is ended by the com
plete triumph of our allies and ourselves.

TO MY FELLOW AMERICANS OF

GERMAN BLOOD

APRIL 16, 1918

HERMANN HAGEDORN, an American whose father
and mother were born in Germany, an American of
the best and bravest and most loyal type, has just
written a little book called " Where Do You Stand?
An Appeal to Americans of German Origin." I wish
it could be read by every individual of those to whom
it is addressed, and by all other Americans also.

136 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

I am, myself, partly of German blood, and I make
my appeal as an American does, to and on behalf of
all other Americans who have German blood in their
veins. We have room in this country only for Amer
icans who are Americans, and nothing else. They
must be loyal to only one flag; they must speak one
language; they must serve only American ideals. I
mean literally what I say, that every man who bears
even the smallest allegiance to any other country
should be sent out of this country. The native
American who, during this war, directly or in
directly, assails any of our allies, notably England,
but also Japan, is a traitor to America and should be
promptly imprisoned. The German- American, and
especially the German-American editor, guilty of
such conduct or of any exaltation of any German
victory should be instantly interned and then sent
back to Germany. The Sinn Feiner who attacks
England should be immediately interned and then
sent back to Ireland. The German-American Alli
ance and all similar organizations should immedi
ately be broken up by Congress and by the state
legislatures. Our people would do well to remember
that even when such organizations keep quiet for
the moment, they are certain to revive and to work
against America with the utmost malignity when
peace comes. The time to crush them is now. Foreign
language newspapers should be required to follow
the example of the New York Herold and begin
the change, which is to convert their newspapers
into English, the language of the United States.

TO AMERICANS OF GERMAN BLOOD 137

As for spies, preachers of sedition, men who prac
tice sabotage, and all other such persons, the
Government already has much power, but should
be given any needed additional power to proceed
against them, and this power should be used in
drastic fashion, if necessary under martial law, and
after a summary trial the guilty men should be shot.

So much for the men of German blood, or of any
other blood, who are not good Americans; but re
member that it is also our highest duty from the
standpoint of Americanism to stand by the good
American of German blood, just exactly as we stand
by any other American. We must refuse to permit
any division along the lines of blood or ancestry. We
must demand whole-hearted Americanism, and if a
man gives this, we must treat him exactly on his
merits, like any other American. In other words, we
must give every man a square deal. Shoot the spy or
the traitor, whether of native American, Irish, or
German blood; whether a Protestant, Catholic, or
Jew. Stand by the good American of any creed, no
matter where he was born or whence his parents
came.

It is an outrage to discriminate against a good
American in civil life because he is of German blood.
It is an even worse outrage for the Government to
permit such discrimination against him in the army
or in any of the organizations working under govern
ment supervision. Let us insist on the immediate
stopping of such discriminations, which cruelly
wound good Americans and tend to drive them back

138 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

into the ranks of the half-loyal. In return let good
Americans of German blood band together and take
the lead in organization action against all disloyal
or half-loyal citizens of German blood and against
all German language or English language newspa
pers which are not whole-heartedly loyal and against
all such organizations as the German-American
Alliance.

AN EXTRAORDINARY ACHIEVEMENT

IN HUMAN UPBUILDING

APRIL 17, 1918

MAJOR E. C. SIMMONS, of St. Louis, the manager of
the Southwestern Division of the American Red
Cross, has just returned from our army in France.
He relates a really extraordinary achievement of the
division of orthopaedic surgery with the army under
the direction of Surgeon-Major Joel E. Goldthwaite.

All the divisions of troops sent across, of course,
contain a number of men who show physical short
comings under the strain of actual campaigning. In
General Edwards's division these men numbered in
the neighborhood of fifteen per cent, not an unusual
proportion in the history of past wars. Dr. Gold
thwaite got permission to try his hand on the treat
ment of a body composed of somewhat over five
hundred of them, and instantly began vigorous but
careful work to build up all their physical defects.

As his work for each man was finished, he was put

AN EXTRAORDINARY ACHIEVEMENT 139

in one of four classes. Class A included those to
whom the training gave such vigor that they were
fit to go right to the front as battle units. Class B
included those who could be made fit for hard physi
cal labor back of the front, although not for the
tremendous strain of the trenches. Class C included
those fitted for clerical and similar duties. Class D
included those whose physical condition would not
be improved and who had to be sent home.

Dr. Goldthwaite was able to place over eighty per
cent of the men in Class A, and all the remainder in
either Class B or Class C. Not a man had to be sent
home. Remember that the physical shortcomings of
these men were all present before they entered the
army and were not acquired in the army. The work
done for them made them not only fit to be soldiers,
but fit to be citizens. Moreover, it affected them
morally exactly as much as physically. They had
become utterly dispirited and downcast. After Dr.
Goldthwaite was through with them, they were all
self-reliant, energetic Americans, vigorous, upstand
ing, and self-respecting, having lost all trace of
either moral or physical crooked back and stooping
shoulders.

When we get universal obligatory military train
ing for all our young men, this is what will happen
everywhere and the benefit to our people will be
incalculable. Such training will minimize the chance
of our ever having to go to war and will render it
certain that hereafter we shall always be able to de
fend ourselves instead of trusting to our allies to

140 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

defend us. Moreover, it will do us even more good
as regards the tasks of peace than as regards the
tasks of war, for it will turn out every young man far
better able to earn his living and far better fitted to
be a good citizen.

FREEDOM STANDS WITH HER BACK
TO THE WALL

APRIL 20, 1918

THIS is a terrible hour of trial and suffering and
danger for our war-worn allies, who in France are
battling for us no less than for themselves. If shame
is even more dreadful than suffering, then it is a no
less terrible hour for our own country. Our allies
stand with their backs to the wall in the fight for
freedom, and America looks on. The free nations
stand at bay in the cause that is ours no less than
theirs; and after over a year of war the army we
have sent to their aid is smaller than that of poor
heroic, ruined Belgium, is hardly more than a
twentieth the size which gallant and impoverished
Italy has in the field. And this great wealthy Nation
of ours has not yet furnished to our own brave troops
in the field any cannon or airplanes, and almost no
machine guns, save those which we have obtained
from hard-pressed France — and let our people
remember that every gun thus made for us by hard-
pressed France is a gun left unmade for hard-pressed
Italy.

FREEDOM WITH BACK TO THE WALL 141

Our few gallant fighting men overseas have won
high honor for themselves, and have made all other
Americans forever their debtors; but it is a scandal
and a reproach to this Nation that they are so few.
If in this mighty battle our allies win, it will be due
to no real aid of ours; and if they should fail, black
infamy would be our portion because of the delay
and the folly and the weakness and the cold, time
serving timidity of our Government, to which this
failure would be primarily due. If those responsible
for our failure, if those responsible for the refusal to
prepare during the two and a half years in which we
were vouchsafed such warning as never nation pre
viously received, if those responsible for the sluggish
feebleness with which we have acted since we help
lessly drifted into the war — if these men now re
pented of the cruel wrong they have done this Na
tion and mankind, we could afford to wrap their
past folly and evil-doing in the kindly mantle of
oblivion. But they boast of their foolishness, they
excuse and justify it, they announce that they feel
pride and delight in contemplating it. Therefore,
it is for us, the people, to bow our heads on this our
penitential day; for we are laggards in the battle,
we have let others fight in our quarrel, we have let
others pay with their shattered bodies for the fire in
their burning souls.

The trumpets of the Lord sounded for Armaged
don; but our hearts were not swift to answer nor
our feet jubilant; coldly we watched others die that
we might live. Our rulers were supple and adroit,

142 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

but they were not mighty of soul. They have shown
that they will not lead us, and will ever stand in
front only if we force them forward. Therefore, the
reason is all the greater why we, the American
people, must search our own hearts and with un
flinching will insist that from now on not a day, not
an hour, shall be wasted until our giant but soft and
lazy strength is hardened, until we ourselves take
the burden from the shoulders of others, until we pay
whatever price our past shortcomings demand, and
with heads uplifted and spirit undaunted stride
forward to the great goal of the peace of victorious
right.

A SQUARE DEAL FOR ALL AMERICANS
APRIL 27, 1918

THERE is no room in this country for the man who
tries to be both an American and something else.
There can be no such thing as a fifty-fifty loyalty
between America and Germany. Either a man is
whole-hearted in his support of America and her
allies, and in his hostility to Germany and her allies,
or he is not loyal to America at all. In such case he
should be at once interned or sent out of the country.
But if he is whole-hearted in his loyal support of
America, then no matter what his birthplace or
parentage he is entitled to stand on a full and exact
equality with every other American.

Therefore the obligation is twofold, and one side
is just as important as the other. Every American

A SQUARE DEAL FOR ALL AMERICANS 143

of German birth or parentage must act as an Ameri
can and nothing else, and if he does not so act he
should be treated as an alien enemy. But if he acts
exactly as other good Americans act, then it is a
shame and a disgrace not to treat him absolutely
like these other good Americans. The immense
majority of Americans who are in whole or in part of
German blood are as stanch Americans as are to be
found in the land. They are serving in our armies
precisely as other Americans serve. They are ex
actly as fit as any other American to fill the highest
positions anywhere in our armies or in civil life.
Any discrimination against them, active or passive,
military or political, social or industrial, is an in
tolerable outrage. Moreover, such a discrimination
is itself profoundly anti-American in its effects, for
it not only cruelly wounds brave and upright and
loyal Americans, but tends to drive them back
into segregation, away from the mass of American
citizenship.

America is a Nation and not a mosaic of nation
alities. The various nationalities that come here are
not to remain separate, but to blend into the one
American nationality — the nationality of Washing
ton and Lincoln, of Muhlenberg and Sheridan. There
fore, we must have but one language, the English
language. Every immigrant who comes here should
be required within five years to learn English or to
leave the country, for hereafter every immigrant
should be treated as a future fellow citizen and not
merely as a labor unit. English should be the only

144 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

language taught or used in the primary schools. We
should provide by law so that after a reasonable
interval every newspaper in this country should be
published in English.

A square deal for all Americans means relentless
attack on all men in this country who are not
straight-out Americans and nothing else. It just as
emphatically means to stand by every good Ameri
can of German blood exactly as much as by every
other good American. In every loyalty organization
a special effort should be made to see that in the
leadership and in the ranks the Americans of German
blood come in on precisely the same basis as every
one else. And the straight-out Americans, in whole
or in part of German blood, should themselves insist
on this, not as a favor which they request, but as a
right which they demand, a right predicated on their
fervid and militant Americanism. I wish we could
see such an organization formed, an uncompromis
ingly straight-out American organization, including
Americans of all our different blood strains, but with
as large a proportion of Americans in whole or in
part of German blood as possible, and then let this
organization take the lead in aggressively loyal
Americanism, in the demand to fight this war with
all speed and efficiency, until it is crowned by the
peace of complete victory and in the purpose to
make this peace mark the glorious rebirth, the puri
fication and the giant growth of the American spirit
— the spirit of an intense and unified American
nationalism.

THE GERMAN HORROR 145

We Americans must be loyal first to our own
Nation and to our own national ideals, and we must
develop to the utmost the virile hardihood of body,
mind, and soul without which there can be no real
greatness. And our devotion to America shall in
part show itself in the unswerving effort to make
this great democratic Republic both strong for self-
defense and strong for wise and brotherly help to
other nations, to make it both the leader and the
servant of all mankind.

THE GERMAN HORROR
MAY 2, 1918

THE Hague conferences laid down a number of rules
which the signatory powers, including Germany,
agreed to observe in order to mitigate the horrors of
war. Germany has with equal cynicism and brutal
ity violated every one of these rules. She has waged
war as it was waged in the Dark Ages. She has
shown revolting cruelty toward soldiers and espe
cially toward non-combatants, including women and
children.

At this moment a great cannon is bombarding
Paris. Not a soldier has been killed by it ; it has not
in the smallest degree affected France's military
power, nor was it intended to do so. It was intended
to terrorize the French civilian population by the
destruction of churches, hospitals, and private build
ings and the murder of women and children. On

146 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

Good Friday one of the shells wrecked a church and
killed a number of the little choir boys and a number
of women who were at prayer. Among the killed
were three American women whom I knew, who
were abroad working for our soldiers. An American
friend who saw the horror writes me:

Evidently the Germans do not worry over the fact that
their shells descend on women and children kneeling in prayer
on a Good Friday, before the crucifix.

Another American friend, a Red Cross woman,
writes:

One shell burst in a maternity hospital, killing a nurse, a
young mother, and a little baby. Several other mothers and
new-born babies were injured.

The Zeppelins and airplanes are continually
bombarding undefended English and French cities
and have killed women and children by the hun
dreds. The submarines have waged war with callous
mercilessness. Their crews have continually prac
ticed torture on the prisoners they have taken.
They leave women and children to drown. They
shoot into the lifeboats. At this moment Americans
are dying from the poison gas which the Germans,
in contemptuous defiance of The Hague rules, have
made an ordinary weapon of war. I have just been
talking with an American soldier absolutely trust
worthy, who himself saw the body of a Canadian
whom the Germans had just crucified.

Every violation of the laws of war has been
practiced by Germany. By her outrages on human
ity she has made herself an outlaw among nations,

SEDITION 147

and unless she pays heavily for her crimes, the whole
world will be in danger. It is Germany, and only
Germany, who is responsible for the hideous atroci
ties that have marked this war, atrocities which all
civilized men outside of Germany believed to have
been eliminated forever from civilized warfare.
Germany has habitually and as a matter of policy
practiced the torture of men, the rape of women, and
the killing of children.

It was deeply to our discredit that during the
shameful years of our neutrality we refused to pro
test against these hideous atrocities. Now at last
this Nation has awakened and has gone to war
against the enemy of America and of mankind. Let
our people now keep steadily in mind just what kind
of a foe we are fighting and just what kind of infamy
that foe is habitually practicing. Then let us resolve
that, come what may, we will fight this war through
to a finish until the authors of this hideous infamy
have paid in full and have been punished as they
deserve. For in no other way can a peace worth
having be obtained.

SEDITION, A FREE PRESS, AND
PERSONAL RULE

MAY 7, 1918

THE legislation now being enacted by Congress
should deal drastically with sedition. It should also
guarantee the right of the press and people to speak

148 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

the truth freely of all their public servants, including
the President, and to criticize them in the severest
terms of truth whenever they come short in their
public duty. Finally, Congress should grant the
Executive the amplest powers to act as an executive
and should hold him to stern accountability for
failure so to act, but it should itself do the actual
lawmaking and should clearly define the lines and
limits of action and should retain and use the fullest
powers of investigation into and supervision over
such action. Sedition is a form of treason. It is an
offense against the country, not against the Presi
dent. At this time to oppose the draft or sending
our armies to Europe, to uphold Germany, to attack
our allies, to oppose raising the money necessary to
carry on the war are at least forms of sedition, while
to act as a German spy or to encourage German
spies to use money or intrigue in the corrupt service
of Germany, to tamper with our war manufactures
and to encourage our soldiers to desert or to fail in
their duty, and all similar actions are forms of un
doubtedly illegal sedition. For some of these offenses
death should be summarily inflicted. For all the
punishment should be severe.

The Administration has been gravely remiss in
dealing with such acts.

Free speech, exercised both individually and
through a free press, is a necessity in any country
where the people are themselves free. Our Govern
ment is the servant of the people, whereas in Ger
many it is the master of the people. This is because

SEDITION 149

the American people are free and the German are
not free. The President is merely the most im
portant among a large number of public servants.
He should be supported or opposed exactly to the
degree which is warranted by his good conduct or
bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in render
ing loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Na
tion as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary
that there should be full liberty to tell the truth
about his acts, and this means that it is exactly
necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to
praise him when he does right. Any other attitude
in an American citizen is both base and servile. To
announce that there must be no criticism of the
President, or that we are to stand by the President,
right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile,
but is morally treasonable to the American public.
Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him
or any one else. But it is even more important to
tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him
than about any one else.

During the last year the Administration has
shown itself anxious to punish the newspapers which
uphold the war, but which told the truth about the
Administration's failure to conduct the war effi
ciently, whereas it has failed to proceed against
various powerful newspapers which opposed the war
or attacked our allies or directly or indirectly aided
Germany against this country, as these papers up
held the Administration and defended the ineffi
ciency. Therefore, no additional power should be

150 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

given the Administration to deal with papers for
criticizing the Administration. And, moreover, Con
gress should closely scrutinize the way the Post
master-General and Attorney-General have already
exercised discrimination between the papers they
prosecuted and the papers they failed to prosecute.
Congress should give the President full power for
efficient executive action. It should not abrogate
its own power. It should define how he is to reorgan
ize the Administration. It should say how large an
army we are to have and not leave the decision to
the amiable Secretary of War, who has for two years
shown such inefficiency. It should declare for an
army of five million men and inform the Secretary
that it would give him more the minute he asks for
more.

THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE
MAY 12, 1918

As now seems likely, if the great German drive fails,
it is at least possible that, directly or indirectly, the
Germans will then start a peace drive. In such case
they will probably endeavor to make such seeming
concessions as to put a premium upon pacifist agita
tion for peace in the free countries of the West
against which they are fighting. To yield to such
peace proposals would be fraught with the greatest
danger to the Allies, and especially to our own
country in the future.

DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 151

Let us never forget that no promise Germany
makes can be trusted. The kultur developed under
the Hohenzollerns rests upon shameless treachery
and duplicity no less than upon ruthless violence and
barbarity.

For example, there are strong indications that
Germany may be prepared, if she now fails on the
western front, to abandon all that for which she has
fought on her western front, provided that in Middle
Europe and in the East there is no interference with
her. In other words, she would be prepared to give
back Alsace and Lorraine to France, to give Italian
Austria to Italy, to give Luxemburg to Belgium, and
to let the Allies keep the colonies they have con
quered, on condition that her dominance in Russia
and in the Balkans, her dominance of the subject
peoples of Austria through the Austrian Hapsburgs,
and her dominance of Western Asia through her
vassal state, Turkey, should be left undisturbed. To
the average American, and probably to the average
Englishman and Frenchman, there is much that is
alluring in such a programme. It might be urged as a
method of stopping the frightful slaughter of war,
while securing every purpose for which the free
peoples who still fight are fighting. Yet it would be
infinitely better that this war were carried on to the
point of exhaustion than that we yield to such terms.

Such terms would mean the definite establishment
of Germany's military ascendancy on a scale never
hitherto approached in the civilized world. It would
mean that perhaps within a dozen years, certainly

152 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

within the lifetime of the very men now fighting this
war, this country and the other free countries would
have to choose between bowing their necks to the
German yoke or else going into another war under
conditions far more disadvantageous to them.

A premature and inconclusive peace now would
spell ruin for the world, just as in 1864 a premature
and inconclusive peace would have spelled ruin to
the United States, and in the present instance the
United States would share the ruin of the rest of the
free peoples of mankind.

On the face of it Germany would not become a
giant empire. Just exactly as on the face of it at
present Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria
call themselves simply four allied nations, standing
on equal terms. But in reality those four powers are
merely Germany and her three vassal states, whose
military and economic and political powers are all
disposed of by the Hohenzollerns. A peace such as
that above outlined would leave these as really one
huge empire. The population of these four countries,
plus the populations of Russian regions recently
annexed by Germany, is over two hundred millions.
This population would be directed and dominated by
the able, powerful, and utterly brutal and unscrupu
lous German governing class, which the very fact of
the peace would put in the saddle, and the huge
empire thus dominated and directed would become
a greater menace to the free peoples than anything
known for the last thousand years.

Short-sighted people will say that this power

DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 153

would only menace Asia, and therefore that we need
feel no concern about it. There could be no error
greater or more lamentable. Twenty years hence by
mere mass and growth Germany would dominate
the Western European powers that have now fought
her. This would mean that the United States would
be left as her victim.

In the first place, she would at once trample the
Monroe Doctrine under foot, and treat tropical and
south temperate America as her fields for exploita
tion, domination, and conquest. In the next place,
she would surely trample this country under foot
and bleed us white, doing to us on a gigantic scale
what she has done to Belgium. If such a peace as is
above described were at this time made, the United
States could by no possibility escape the fate of
Belgium and of the Russian territories taken by Ger
many unless we ourselves became a powerful mili
tarist state with every democratic principle sub
ordinated to the one necessity of turning this Nation
into a huge armed camp — I do not mean an armed
nation, as Switzerland is armed, and as I believe
this country ought to be armed. I mean a nation
whose sons, every one of them, would have to serve
from three to five years in the army, and whose
whole activities, external and internal, would be
conditioned by the one fact of the necessity of mak
ing head, single-handed, against Germany.

I very strongly believe that never again should
we be caught unprepared as we have been caught
unprepared this time. I believe that all our young

154 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

men should be trained to arms as the Swiss are
trained. But I would regard it as an unspeakable
calamity for this Nation to have to turn its whole
energies into the kind of exaggerated militarism
which under such circumstances would alone avail
for self-defense.

The military power of Germany must be brought
low. The subject nations of Austria, the Balkans,
and Western Asia must be freed. We ought not to
refrain an hour longer from going to war with
Turkey and Bulgaria. They are part of Germany's
military strength. They represent some of the most
cruel tyrannies over subject peoples for which Ger
many stands. It is idle for us to pretend sympathy
with the Armenians unless we war on Turkey,
which, with Germany's assent, has well-nigh crushed
the Armenians out of existence.

When President Wilson stated that this war was
waged to make democracy safe throughout the
world, he properly and definitely committed the
American people to the principles above enunciated,
and for the American people to accept less than their
President has thus announced that he would insist
upon would be unworthy. The President has also
said that "there is therefore but one response possi
ble for us. Force — force to the utmost — force with
out stint or limit — the righteous and triumphant
force which shall make right the law of the world
and cast every selfish dominion down in the dust."

The American people must support President
Wilson unflinchingly in the stand to which he is thus

THE WAR SAVINGS CAMPAIGN 155

committed and must resolutely refuse to accept any
other position. We must guard against any slacken
ing of effort. We must refuse to accept any pre
mature peace or any peace other than the peace of
overwhelming victory.

We must secure such complete freedom for the
peoples of Central Europe and Western Asia as will
shatter forever the threat of German world domina
tion. Our honorable obligations to our allies, our
loyalty to our own national principles, the need to
protect our American neighbors, the need to defend
our own land and people, and our hopes for the peace
and happiness of our children's children all forbid us
to accept an ignoble and inconclusive peace.

THE WAR SAVINGS CAMPAIGN

MAY 27, 1918

OF course the primary factor in deciding this war is
and will be the army. But there can be no great
army in war to-day unless a great nation stands back
of it. The most important of all our needs is im
mensely to strengthen the fighting line at the front.
But it cannot be permanently strengthened unless
the whole Nation is organized back of the front. We
need increased production by all. We need thrift
and the avoidance of extravagance and of waste of
money upon non-essentials by all. We need the in
vestment of our money in government securities by
all of us.

156 - ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

The Government, through the War Savings
paign, offers the opportunity to every individual in
the Nation to join in a great national movement to
secure these ends. The Treasury Department pro
poses as a means to achieve these ends that all our
people form themselves into Thrift clubs or War
Savings societies. This is the people's war. The
responsibility for the Government rests on the people
as a whole. The army is the people's army. It can
be supported only if the people invest in the securi
ties of the Government. And this investment by the
people should be as nearly universal as possible. All
the men and the women and half the children of the
land should be active members of Uncle Sam's team.
The War Savings campaign offers them the chance
to be active members. This campaign means the
encouragement of thrift and production. But it
means much more than this. It also means to make
our people realize their solidarity and mutual inter
dependence and to make them understand that the
Government is really theirs. Therefore it is a move
ment for genuine Americanization of all our people.
It is a movement to fuse all our different race stocks
into one great unified nationality. It is emphatically
a movement for nationalism and patriotism.

Between thirty and forty millions of our people
to-day own Liberty bonds or War Savings Stamps.
All of us who come in this class have an increased
sense of loyalty and responsibility to the Govern
ment. The Treasury Department has offered
through the War Savings plan a great opportunity

THE WAR SAVINGS CAMPAIGN 157

for the entire Nation to group itself into War Savings
societies or Thrift clubs and thus be of immediate
and direct service to the Government. Neither
through government programme and traditions nor
through the habits of the people were we in any way
prepared for this struggle. We were a spendthrift
Nation. One of the roads to national unity and
national force in this war is through thrift, using
the word to include both increased production in
every field and also the conservation of those things
which are so desperately needed for the winning of
the war. The conscientious thrifty man to-day will
conserve food as requested by the Food Administra
tion. He will conserve fuel as requested by the Fuel
Administration. And he will conserve to the best
of his ability the labor and materials which the Gov
ernment needs by not using his money for purchas
ing any of the non-essentials and thereby using up
materials and labor needed by the Government. He
will, by purchasing government securities, entrust
the spending of his money to the Government in
order to speed up the war and to secure the peace of
overwhelming victory.

Let all of us join in this movement. The success
of the War Savings campaign means an immense
addition to our war strength. It also means the first
step in economic preparedness for what is to come
after the war. We must never return to our hap
hazard spendthrift ways. Thrift should be made a
national habit as part of our social and industrial
readjustment.

158 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

We are just finishing our Red Cross campaign.
Now let us put through the War Savings campaign.

ANTI-BOLSHEVISM
JUNE 5, 1918

ON the whole the worst fate that can befall any
country is to fall into the hands of the Bolsheviki.
Therefore, we should visit with heavy condemnation
the Romanoffs of politics and industry who, by
Bourbon-like inability to see or refusal to face the
future, make ready the way for Bolshevism. Utter
ruin will befall this country if it falls into the hands
of Haywoods and Townleys and of the politicians
who truckle to them, but the surest way to secure
their temporary and disastrous triumph is to refuse
to make every effort, in sane, good-tempered, reso
lute fashion, to deal with the problems which affect
unfavorably the welfare of the farmer and the
working-man.

Mere stolid inaction, mere refusal to acknowledge
the existence of trouble and duty to remedy it
amounts to playing into the hands of the worst and
most evil agitators. Such an attitude on the part of
our political leaders is almost as bad as the failure to
act with instant readiness and full strength against
disorder or as the time-serving cowardice which bows
to and flatters the leaders of disorder. What is
needed is unhesitating and thoroughgoing con
demnation of, and action against, the anarchists and

ANTI-BOLSHEVISM 159

inciters to sedition and to class envy and hatred, and
at the same time genuine and radical effort to secure
for the farmer and the working-man and for every
one else the square deal in actual fact. Neither
attitude is enough by itself; the two must go to
gether if results of lasting worth are to be secured.

The leaders in such movements as the I.W.W. in
clude a large proportion of men whose activities are
criminal, and who, as regards civilization and all
that makes life worth living for decent, hard-working
men and women, stand merely as human beasts of
prey. But very many of these fellows are not bad
men at all, but merely unfortunates who turn to
an evil organization because no good organization
offers them relief or concerns itself with their welfare.
I am not speaking of theory; I am speaking of fact.
I know of cases in connection with the forest service
where government officials, by acting on behalf of
maltreated crews of lumber companies and by seeing
that they got justice and fair treatment, turned
them into zealous, right-feeling, public-spirited
citizens, who, for instance, worked hard and dis
interestedly in putting out forest fires.

It is idle to say that no governmental action is
needed on behalf of farmers and wage-workers. Un
questionably such action will merely do harm unless
at the same time the interests and permanent welfare
of the business men of the country, great and small,
are considered. But the action itself is necessary.
It should be based on the theory that so far as pos
sible the work of betterment, alike as regards farmers,

160 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

working-men, and business men, take the form of
cooperation among themselves, with the maximum
amount of individual and collective private effort,
and the minimum necessary amount of govern
mental control and encouragement. It is not pos
sible to state empirically in advance just how far this
governmental control and encouragement shall go.
This must be determined by actual experience in
settling what is necessary in each individual set of
cases. The best result will always come where the
organization of private citizens is not limited to any
one class, but include farmers, working-men, busi
ness men; just as is true of one such great organiza
tion in the State of Iowa; just as is true of a smaller
but successful organization in and around the city
of Springfield, Massachusetts; just as is preemi
nently true of many of the state councils of defense.
There must be sincere purpose to push forward and
remedy wrong; but there must likewise be firm
refusal to submit to the leadership of either the crim
inal fringe or the lunatic fringe. Class hatred is a
mighty poor substitute for American brotherhood.
If we are wise we will proceed by evolution and not
revolution. But Bourbon refusal to move forward
at all merely invites revolution.

GENERAL WOOD
JUNE 15, 1918

SENATOR HIRAM JOHNSON has rendered many nota
ble services to the public, and among them is his

GENERAL WOOD 161

recent speech concerning the cruel injustice with
which Major- General Leonard Wood has been
treated and the very grave damage thereby done the
army and the Allied cause at this critical moment of
the war.

General Wood's entire offense consists in his hav
ing, before the war, continually advocated our doing
things which now every one in his senses admits
ought to have been done. Nine tenths of wisdom
consists of being wise in time. General Wood was
wise in time. Moreover, by twenty years of hard,
practical work, he fitted himself to do peculiarly
well in this very crisis. He was our senior general
in rank, he was recognized by the best French and
English military authorities as by experience trained
to play an immediate and important part in the
difficult and perilous joint work of the war. He had
testified at length and with exhaustive professional
knowledge before the congressional military com
mittees, one year and two years prior to our entry
into the war, pointing out all the military lacks,
which experience has since shown to exist and which
the War Department then denied existed. He is to
be credited with the only piece of serious military
preparedness in advance which is to our credit. In
the service of 1915, in the teeth of indifference and
hostility from his superiors, he created the Platts-
burg officers' reserve training camp, starting the
system of training camps which has enabled us to
officer our draft army.

He is in splendid physical condition. Recently

162 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

when in France he was severely wounded by a shell
burst, and the surgeons reported his recovery as be
ing more rapid than would have been the case with
the average young man of robust bodily health and
vigor. He has done excellent work in training his
men at Camp Funston. He has been unwearied in
looking after the health and welfare of his men. He
has been rewarded by their loyal devotion; they
have been profoundly grieved and moved by having
him suddenly taken from them. The refusal to use
his great ability and energy means a distinct subtrac
tion from the sum total of our military efficiency, a
distinct addition to the risk from disease and discom
fort which some of our men at the front will have to
incur, and a distinct benefit to the cause of Germany.
No explanation has been given the American
people for the action concerning him. Nothing has
been made public which warrants our belief that this
action was due either to professional or to patriotic
considerations.

HELP RUSSIA NOW.

JUNE 20, 1918

RUSSIA has been thrown under the iron tyranny of
German militarism and capitalism by the Bolshe
vists of the Lenine type. The Russian people are
slowly awakening to this bitter truth. The far-
sighted, the Russians of genuine patriotism, have
long been awake, but the peasants, who are at heart

HELP RUSSIA NOW 163

good, but' who are ignorant and misled, are now
awakening also. Plenty of them, especially among
the Cossacks, are well aware that submission to
Germany now means death for Russia. Plenty of
them are eager to fight and know well that only by
successful war on a grand scale can Russia now be
saved and regenerated, but they must have help and
the help must be given immediately or it may be too
late, and America can best give the help.

A Russian peasant woman who can hardly write
her name is here to ask that the help be given im
mediately and that it be given in Siberia. She is a
remarkable character in her strength, her simplic
ity, her direct straightforwardness, and her intense
earnestness and entire disinterestedness. She was
a major in the Russian army until the Russian army
was betrayed and dissolved. Her peasant husband
was killed in the ranks. She served in the ranks of
a regiment of men. She commanded in a regiment of
women. She has been wounded four times. She
was born in Tomsk, Siberia. She is a peasant of the
best class, in habits of thought and belief and life
and sympathy. But she has a wide outlook. She
knows that America will keep her word about Si
beria, just as America kept her word about Cuba.
She asks that for our own sake, just as much as for
Russia's sake, we now send an army to Siberia,
entering through Vladivostok or Harbin, or through
both. She asks us to announce that after the war is
over we guarantee to return to Russia her country
with the right for her people to decide for them-

1 64 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

selves how they are to be governed, and that in the
war we fight with and for all the Russians who will
fight against Germany for Russia, and that we fight
to the death against the Germans and against all
Russians who side with the Germans.

Siberia is in chaos. Eastern Siberia has plenty
of food and contains large elements of the popula
tion, especially Cossacks, who would promptly join
with an Allied force which they believed would, in
good faith, aid in the reconquest of Russia for the
purpose of giving it back to the Russians themselves.
West of Lake Baikal is a region dominated by a
German army, some twenty thousand strong, com
posed of former German prisoners of war, who
are organized under the name of the German Red
Guards and who are the permanent adherents of
German autocracy, but who help the cause of
Russian anarchy in order to conquer Russia for the
German autocracy. West of these again a stretch
of country, which includes the passes of the Ural
Mountains, is held by the splendid Czechs, who, by
the way, must at the end of this war be rewarded by
seeing an independent Czech-Slovak commonwealth
established, just as there must also be a great Jugo
slav commonwealth.

At once there should be in East Siberia an Ameri
can army of say thirty thousand men with a Jap
anese army of the same size and a British imperial
army of as nearly the same size as possible. If there
was difficulty as to the command of the Allied forces,
borrow some man of great reputation, Joffre, for

HELP RUSSIA NOW 165

instance, from France. Let the woman major above
spoken of and other Russian friends of the peasants
and of a Russian republic go in advance to make
clear that the Allied army comes only to restore
Russia to the Russians. Let all Russians who join
be paid by the United States on the same scale as
our own troops, and if necessary let the United
States guarantee the payment of the Japanese.
Move against the German Red Guards as quickly
as possible and then push instantly to join the heroic
Czechs in the Urals. Let the railroads be organized
back of the army by our best railroad men and let
them carry immediately behind the army immense
quantities of clothing, boots, and farm machinery.
Siberia has food and it will furnish hundreds of
thousands of soldiers who will rally around such an
Allied army as a nucleus. Before this army reached
the Urals, the Germans would have to prepare to
meet it and their pressure on the Western front
would thereby be relieved.

Russia is at this moment lost, so that no change in
Russia can make things worse for the Allies than
they now are. We ought to have acted with energy
and intelligence on her behalf a year ago. Let us at
least act now, for no possible action can be worse
than our inaction. She does not need talk and en
voys to study the situation. She needs an army to
serve as a nucleus around which she can create her
own immense armies. The above plan is better than
none. If our Government can devise a better, let
them do so, but let us act at once.

166 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

AN AMERICAN FOURTH OF JULY
JUNE 23, 1918

IT is announced that on the Fourth of July the
celebration is to be by race groups — that is, by
Scandinavians, Slavs, Germans, Italians, and so
forth. In sport organizations it may be necessary to
have such a kind of divided celebration in some
places, but I most emphatically protest against such
a type of celebration being general, and I doubt
whether it is advisable to have it anywhere. On the
contrary, I believe that we should make the Fourth
of July a genuine Americanization day, and should
use it to teach the prime lesson of .Americanism,
which is that there is no room in the country for the
perpetuation of separate race groups or racial divi
sions; that we must all be Americans and nothing
but Americans, and that therefore on the Fourth of
July we should all get together simply as Americans
and celebrate the day as such without regard to our
several racial origins.

At two thirds of the places where I have made
speeches on Americanism (and these speeches have
at least been free from any pussy-footing on Amer
icanism), I have been introduced by straight
Americans who were in whole or in part of German
blood. At Milwaukee, for example, I was introduced
by August Vogel, who has three sons already in the
army and a fourth who will enter this summer. At
Martinsville, Indiana, I was introduced by the

HOW NOT TO ADJOURN POLITICS 167

mayor, George F. Schmidt, who has two sons in the
army. One of the sons, Wayne Schmidt, was the
catcher of the University of Indiana baseball nine.
He was in the same regiment with my two sons, Ted
and Archie, and like Archie has been severely
wounded. Mayor Schmidt writes me:

We are proud of Wayne and hope that his wounds will soon
heal and that he may get back to his regiment and continue
to serve his country. There is nothing fifty-fifty in this boy's
blood or any of his kin. His greatest ambition is to lead a
company up the streets of Berlin.

This speaks the true American!

I also have German blood in my veins. We Vogels
and Schmidts and Roosevelts intend to celebrate the
Fourth of July with all our fellow Americans, with
out regard to whether they are of German, English
or Irish, French, Scandinavian, Spanish, or Italian
blood. Unless they are Americans and nothing else,
they are out of place at a Fourth of July celebration,
and if they are straight Americans, absolutely loyal
to America, and resolutely bent on putting this war
through until it is crowned by the peace of complete
victory, then we are their brothers, their fellow
Americans, and we decline to permit any lines of
separation between us and them.

HOW NOT TO ADJOURN POLITICS

JUNE 25, 1918

IN the current North American Review and its
supplemental War Weekly there are two strong and

168 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

deeply patriotic articles on the President's recent
announcement that politics is to be adjourned.
When contrasted with the injection of politics by the
President into the senatorial contests in Wisconsin
and Michigan, never before in any great crisis in this
country has there been such complete subordination
of patriotism to politics as by this Administration
during this war. Witness the activities of the organ
ization under Messrs. Burleson and Creel and the
working alliance between the Administration and
the Hearst newspapers, while Vice-President Mar
shall and Secretary McAdoo give the signal for frank
partisanship of an extreme type in their public
speeches. The various activities are, of course, co-
related and directed toward the same end.

In Wisconsin the President interfered by a per
sonal appeal for the Democratic senatorial candidate
against the Republican. He based his appeal on
certain alleged positions taken by the Republican
candidate, Mr. Lenroot, during the two years and a
half preceding our entry into the war, which posi
tions, he asserted, did not meet the " acid test " of
patriotism. The President made the conduct of our
public men during the two years and a half prior to
the war the test by which they are to be judged, and
where he himself applies this test to others he must
himself be judged by it.

His supporters make the plea that to call attention
to the President's record during these two and a half
years is to cry over spilt milk. But the President's
attack on Lenroot was a square repudiation of this

HOW NOT TO ADJOURN POLITICS' 169

plea when it applied to anybody except himself. In
reality the " acid test " of patriotism during these
two and a half years is to be found in the use of
phrases like " too proud to fight " and " peace with
out victory " and the refusal to act instead of merely
talking after the sinking of the Lusitania; in the
fatuous refusal to prepare and in the insistence on
preserving an ignoble neutrality between right and
wrong between those who were fighting to make the
world safe for democracy and liberty and those who
were fighting to overthrow both. Tried by the test
of past conduct which the President applied to Mr.
Lenroot, he is himself found wanting. Mr. Lenroot
spilled a teaspoonful of milk, but Mr. Wilson spilled
a bucketful and he must not call attention to the
teaspoon and expect to escape having attention
called to the bucket.

The President has now personally requested Mr.
Henry Ford to come forward as his personal candi
date for the Senate in Michigan. This action cannot
be reconciled either with the President's statement
that politics must be adjourned or with the reasons
he alleged for opposing Mr. Lenroot. No man was
a more intense pacifist, no man struggled harder
against preparedness, no man was more eagerly
hailed as an ally by the pro-Germans than Mr. Ford
during the two and a half years before we did our
duty and entered the war. He is not a Republican;
he is not a Democrat. He supported Mr. Wilson on
the " he kept us out of war " issue. Mr. Wilson can
only desire his election on grounds of personal poli-

170 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

tics, as Mr. Wilson wishes as associates not strong
men, but servants, and from the servants he de
mands servility even more than service. I have not
the slightest political feeling when politics comes into
hostile contact with patriotism and Americanism.
There is no public servant whom during the past
year I have supported more heartily than the Demo
cratic Senator, Chamberlain. I oppose Mr. Ford,
because in the great crisis I feel that his election
would be a calamity from the standpoint of far-
sighted and patriotic Americanism. I would oppose
him if he had been nominated by the Republican
Party. I oppose him in precisely the same spirit
now that he has been nominated on personal grounds
by Mr. Wilson.

HATS OFF TO THE INTERNATIONAL

TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION

JUNE 27, 1918

THE published reports of the International Typo
graphical Union, issued from Indianapolis, make a
very remarkable showing and put that organization
high on the honor roll of America for the Great War.
Forty-one hundred journeymen members of the
union and seven hundred apprentices are in the
military and naval forces of the United States and
Canada. Seventy-five members have already paid
with their lives for their devotion to their country.
The union has paid $22,000 mortuary benefits to

HATS OFF TO TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION 171

the widows, orphans, and mothers of these men.
The union, through its executive council, has in
vested $90,000 in the Liberty loans, and subordi
nate local unions and individual members have in
vested $3,000,000 in the Liberty loans.

These are war-time activities. During the same
period the International Typographical Union has
continued all its ordinary benefit works. It has paid
over $350,000 to fifteen hundred old-age pensioners,
over $300,000 in mortuary benefits, and $170,000
to the Union Printers' Home at Colorado Springs.
Every dollar has been paid by members of the organ
ization in the form of regular dues and assessments.
The union neither solicits nor accepts contributions
to its benefit funds.

During the same period the union has expended
only $1200 for strike expenses. The union acts in
thoroughgoing patriotic fashion on the conviction
that there should be no strikes or lockouts during the
war. Its officers regard themselves as volunteers in
the army for the preservation of industrial peace, at
least for the duration of the war, and I hope for long
after the war. Such conduct offers a striking con
trast to the action of certain corporations which dur
ing this war have refused to permit their employees
to organize. Labor has as much right as capital to
organize. It is tyranny to forbid the exercise of this
right, just as it is tyranny to misuse the power ac
quired by organization. The people of the United
States do not believe in tyranny and do believe in
cooperation.

172 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

The International Typographical Union has
offered an admirable example of Americanism and
patriotism. Its attitude is typical of the attitude of
organized labor generally. Hats off to the Inter
national Typographical Union! And hats off to the
working-men and working-women of the United
States!

THE PERFORMANCE OF A GREAT

PUBLIC DUTY

JULY 3, 1918

IT is announced from Washington that the President
has been converted to the need of universal military
training of our young men, as a permanent policy.
This is excellent. If this policy is forthwith incorpo
rated into our laws, it will represent an immense
national advance. In the first place, it will guarantee
us against a repetition of the humiliating experiences
of the last four years, when our helpless refusal to
prepare invited Germany's attack upon us and then
forced us to rely entirely upon our allies to protect
us from that attack while for over a year we slowly
made ready to defend ourselves. In the next place,
it will immeasurably increase the moral and physical
efficiency of the young men who are trained and fit
them both to do better for themselves and to per
form in better fashion the tasks of American citizen
ship. Finally it is essential that the policy should be
adopted now while we are at war and therefore while

A GREAT PUBLIC DUTY 173

our people are awake to the needs of the situation.
As soon as peace comes, there will be a revival of the
sinister agitation of the pro-German or other anti-
American leaders and of the silly clamor of the
pacifists, all of whom will with brazen folly again
reiterate that preparedness ends with war, and that,
anyhow, all war can be averted by signing scraps of
paper. The adoption at once of the policy of obliga
tory universal military training will be the perform
ance of a great public duty.

For three years the foremost advocates of this
policy have pointed out that it can advantageously
be combined with a certain amount of industrial
training. It is earnestly to be hoped that this ele
ment of industrial training will be incorporated in
the law. Of course, in such case the length of service
with the colors in the field, aside from preliminary
training in the higher school grades, ought to be a
year, so as to avoid superficiality. Credit should be
given the graduates of certain scholastic institutions
or to individuals who speedily attain a high degree
of proficiency, and for them the time of service could
be shortened. All officers or other candidates for
officers' training schools would be chosen from
among the best of the men who had gone through
the training, without regard to anything except their
fitness. This would represent the embodiment in
our army of the democratic principle which insists
upon an equal chance for all, equal justice for all, and
the need for leadership, and therefore for special
rewards for leadership. The industrial training

174 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

could be so shaped as to emphasize the need that
hard workers who are efficient should become in a
real sense partners in industry, and that insistence
upon efficiency should be accompanied by a fair
division of the rewards of efficiency, and by insist
ence that the work should be made healthful and
interesting, so that its faithful performance would
be a matter of pride and pleasure.

At this moment our training camps are huge uni
versities, huge laboratories of fine American citizen
ship. Let us make them permanent institutions.
They develop both power of initiative and power of
obedience. They inculcate self-reliance and self-
respect. They also inculcate respect for others and
readiness for discipline, which means readiness to
use our collective power in such shape as to make us
threefold more efficient than we have been. To make
these camps permanent training schools for all our
young men would mean the greatest boon this
Nation could receive.

REPEAL THE CHARTER OF THE

GERMAN-AMERICAN ALLIANCE

JULY n, 1918

THE United States Senate has struck an effective
blow against the Hun within our gates by unani
mously voting to repeal the charter of the German-
American Alliance. It is earriestly to be hoped that
the House will at once follow suit with like unanim-

THE GERMAN-AMERICAN ALLIANCE 175

ity. The Alliance has been thoroughly mischievous
in its activities. It has acted in the interest of Ger
many and against the interest of America. It has
tried to perpetuate Germanism as a separate nation
ality with a separate language in the United States;
it has attacked our allies; it has encouraged dis
loyalty; it was decorated by the Kaiser for its
services to Germany. It has endeavored to prosti
tute our politics to German needs. I have personally
had the honor of being specially singled out by it
for attack. It received money from the Brewers'
Association for the campaign against prohibition.

At this time, when the campaign of German fright-
fulness is in full blast, when the Prussianized Ger
many of the Hohenzollerns is steadily adding to
its list of literally unforgivable offenses against
civilization, there is no room in this country for any
organization, great or small, which either defends
Germany or is lukewarm in the great crusade against
her in which America will henceforth play a leading
part. Germany has recently scored another victory
for frightfulness by sinking a Canadian hospital ship
without warning and drowning two hundred persons,
including women nurses. The ship was a mercy
vessel, not a warship, and was so distinctly marked
that it was impossible to mistake it. The attack
upon it was sheer murder. Yet the German people
tolerate, applaud, and approve the action of the
German Government in this continuous and method
ically organized campaign of murder, rape, and
outrage.

176 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

The most complete exposure of Germany's in
famous purpose in forcing this dreadful war upon
the world is contained in the pamphlet written
by the leading German steel magnate, Herr August
Thyssen. This pamphlet has been translated into
English, has been put into the official record by
Senator Owen, of Oklahoma, has been printed in full
in the San Francisco Argonaut and Baltimore Manu
facturers' Record, and circulated in pamphlet form
by Mr. J. G. Butler, Jr., of Youngstown, Ohio. It
is accessible to everybody. Herr Thyssen has no con
ception of the monstrous turpitude of the plan which
he supported. His only complaint is that he and the
other German financiers were fooled by the German
Kaiser and the German Government, who promised
them victory and failed to furnish it. He proves that
German capitalism was just as responsible for the
war as German militarism (which incidentally shows
the peculiar infamy of the Russian Bolshevists and
American Socialists and their allies in playing Ger
many's game). He shows that Germany's ruthless
brutality was equaled by her sordid greed. He
showed that the Hohenzollern Government, through
the Emperor and the Chancellor, deliberately
planned the war over a year and a half before it
broke out, and at that time and on several occasions
gathered the leading business men of Germany, in
formed them of the plans, and got their support by
holding out the war as one of sheer plunder. The
other nations were to be attacked simply in order
to rob them naked. Herr Thyssen himself was

A RIGHT TO ONE COUNTRY 177

promised thirty thousand acres in Australia. The
Emperor particularly dwelt on the conquest of India,
saying that the English allowed the vast Indian
revenue to be used for and by the Indians them
selves, but that Germany after her conquest would
turn the whole " Golden Stream into the Father
land." There could be no finer tribute to England
when compared with Germany than that which is
thus furnished by the Emperor.

In point of international morality the Germany
of the Hohenzollerns has become the wild beast of
the nations. Whoever directly or indirectly works
for her or against our allies or who is merely luke
warm in the war is an enemy of this country, and an
enemy of all mankind.

EVERY MAN HAS A RIGHT TO ONE
COUNTRY
JULY 15, 1918

EVERY man ought to love his country. If he does
not love his country and is not eager to serve her, he
is a worthless creature and should be contemptu
ously thrown out of the country when possible, and
at any rate debarred from all rights of citizenship in
the country. He is only entitled to one country. If
he claims loyalty to two countries, he is necessarily
a traitor to at least one country. If he claims to be
loyal to both Germany and America, he is necessarily
a traitor to America. No man can be a good Ameri-

178 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

can now unless he is an enemy of Germany and Ger
many's allies and a stanch supporter of America's
allies.

But it is just as wicked and just as un-American
to deny the loyal American, of whatever origin, the
full benefit of his allegiance to one country as it is to
permit the disloyal American to exercise1 a treacher
ous alternative allegiance to two countries. Every
man has a right to one country. He has a right to
love and serve that country and to feel that it is
absolutely his country and that he has in it every
right possessed by any one else. It is our duty to
require the man of German blood who is an Ameri
can citizen to give up all allegiance to Germany
whole-heartedly and without on his part any mental
reservation whatever. If he does this, it becomes no
less our duty to give him the full rights of an Ameri
can, including our loyal respect and friendship with
out on our part any mental reservation whatever.
The duties are reciprocal, and from the standpoint
of American patriotism one is as important as the
other.

There has been nothing finer in this war, nothing
of better augury for the future of America, than the
high courage and splendid loyalty shown by the
American soldiers and sailors who are of German
blood. Relatively to their number they have come
forward as freely into the ranks of our fighting men
as the Americans of any other stock, and all alike
have shown the same soldierly efficiency, the same
devoted patriotism, and, when the need arose, the

A RIGHT TO ONE COUNTRY 179

same heroism. The crew of the torpedo destroyer
who face the submarine, and the airmen of the
battle planes whose lives are in peril every hour, and
the infantry stoggers and doughboys and marines
who stand the killing and suffer the grueling hard
ship and misery of the line fighting, all alike number
in their ranks relatively just as many Americans of
German as of any other blood. Any one can see this
who will look over the lists of casualties and the lists
of men cited for deeds of high gallantry. The official
reports of the German officers bear unintended
testimony to the intense and patriotic Americanism
of these men whom the Hohenzollern officials sneer
at as " half Americans," and who, even when taken
prisoners, are admitted by the German army officers
to " express without hesitation purely American
sentiments." In other words, the Pan-German
propaganda on behalf of German kultur has broken
down in America, and as a consequence there are no
people in this country so hated in the Prussianized
Germany of the Hohenzollerns as the Americans of
German blood.

The very worst enemies of these Americans have
been the traitors and dupes of traitors who have been
during the last few years the leaders of the German-
American Alliance and of the newspapers in German
or English who have backed up the Alliance and
similar organizations. The dissolution by law of the
Alliance and the gradual change of German news
papers into newspapers published in English will be
of benefit to true Americans of German blood more

1 8o ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

than any other of our citizens. But the Americans
of other blood must remember that the man who in
good faith and without reservations gives up another
country for this must in return receive exactly the
same rights, not merely legal, but social and spirit
ual, that other Americans proudly possess. We of
the United States belong to a new and separate
nationality. We are all Americans and nothing else,
and each, without regard to his birthplace, creed, or
national origin, is entitled to exactly the same rights
as all other Americans.

MURDER, TREASON, AND PARLOR
ANARCHY
JULY 18, 1918

ONE of the cheapest methods by which some well-
meaning, silly people, and some sinister people who
are not well-meaning, achieve a reputation for
broad-minded liberality in matters relating to social
reforms is to champion or excuse criminality on the
ground that it is due to social conditions. The
parlor anarchist or parlor Bolshevist is not an at
tractive person, and he may be mischievous when
he joins the genuine anarchist, the " direct " man
with the bomb, because selfish and unpatriotic
politicians then find it advantageous to pander to
both. This species of parlor anarchist appeals to
emotional persons of superficial cultivation, whether
writers, college men, sham economists, or sham re-

TREASON AND PARLOR ANARCHY 181

ligious and charitable workers, because it makes no
demand either upon robust vigor of soul or thorough
ness of mental process. At the moment it manifests
itself in sympathy for the I.W.W. and for convicted
dynamiters and murderers like Mooney.

There are honest and ignorant working-men who
join the I.W.W. because they are misled or because
in some given locality industrial conditions really
are intolerable. I have heard on good authority of
logging camps, for instance, where the men joined
the I.W.W. and practiced sabotage because they
were treated tyrannically and foolishly and where
good treatment turned them into good citizens.
But I know far more numerous instances in which
the leaders have simply been thugs and murderous
malefactors whose criminality was not in the least
due to social conditions, but to their own foul
natures. By all means let us remedy the social
conditions that are wrong, but let us shun, as we
would shun the plague, that mawkish sentimentality
of downright moral and physical cowardice which
fears to call murder, treason, violence, arson, and
rape by their right names and treat them as crimes
to be punished with relentless severity.

Actually there have been make-believe social
reformers who have sought to excuse a brute who
raped a little girl on the ground that social condi
tions made him what he was, and others who on
similar grounds have protested against the condign
punishment of men who burn haystacks, ruin ma
chinery, dynamite peace parades, and, in the interest

1 82 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

of German agents, destroy machinery in mines or
munition factories. Any man who is misled in these
matters can get full information by buying a pam
phlet recently written by a former Socialist, Mr.
Everett Harri, called " The I.W.W. an Auxiliary of
the German Espionage System." The simple truth
is that the men who lead and give the tone to the
I.W.W. are more dangerous criminals than an equal
number of white-slavers and black-handers, and to
give aid and comfort to one set of enemies of the
Nation is as bad as to give aid and comfort to the
others.

The ablest, most far-sighted, and most patriotic
of the heads of organized labor are more opposed to
the I.W.W. as it is at present handled than are any
other persons in the Nation. In just the same way
the farmers whose resentment of wrongdoing is
keenest should repudiate the Non-Partisan League
just as long as it submits to such leadership as that
of most of the men who are at present at its head,
and just so long as it stands for covert disloyalty, as
it has recently done on so many different occasions
in so many different places. I am well aware that
great numbers of honest and loyal farmers of high
character have joined the League, because they
rightly think that many of the economic conditions
now affecting the farmer imperatively call for
remedy. There are any number of men like myself
who will join with the farmers in any sane and patri
otic movement to remedy these conditions, no
matter how radical such a movement may be. But

BACK UP THE FIGHTING MEN 183

we will join with no movement whose leaders are
tainted with disloyalty, or who refuse to give to
others the same square deal they demand for them
selves, or who fail to insist that here in America the
one organization to which we all of us owe a loyalty
greater than is any other, greater than to any labor
union or farmers' league or business or professional
body, is the union of the entire American people.

BACK UP THE FIGHTING MEN

AT THE FRONT

JULY 26, 1918

THERE is no American worth calling such whose
veins do not thrill with pride when he reads of what
has been done by General Pershing and his gallant
army in France. The soldiers over there who wear
the American uniform have made all good Americans
forever their debtors. Now and always afterward
we of this country will walk with our heads high
because of the men who face death and wounds, and
so many of whom have given their lives fighting for
this Nation and for the great ideals of humanity
across the seas.

But we must not let our pride and our admiration
evaporate in mere pride, in mere admiration of what
others have done. We must put the whole strength
of this Nation back of the fighting men at the front.
We owe it to them. We owe it at least as much to
the gallant Allies, who for near four years fought the

1 84 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

great battle that was our battle, no less than theirs.
At last we have begun to come to their assistance,
but let us solemnly realize that we came very late,
and that it is a dreadful thing if we waste one hour
that can now be saved, or weaken in the smallest
degree any effort that can be made. The inability, or
refusal, of Bolshevist Russia to do her part in the
great war for liberty and democracy has cast a
terrible added burden upon the Allies. On the
eastern front this has meant the temporary Allied
ruin and the freeing of the armies of the autocracy
for action against the western peoples. England,
France, and Belgium for four years and Italy for
over three years have been fighting the battle of
civilization. Their man power is terribly depleted.
Thank Heaven, we have got some hundreds of
thousands of soldiers across in time to be a real
element in saving Paris. Our first duty, if we wish to
win the war, is to save Paris. Temporarily, at least,
and I hope permanently, we have done our part in
this respect. But the least faltering, the least letting-
up, or failure in pushing forward our preparations
and our assistance, would be dangerous to the Allied
cause and a wicked desertion of our allies.

From now on America should make this peculiarly
America's war. From now on we should take the
burden of the war upon our shoulders. We should
move forward at once with all the force that there
is in us. We should not allow the war to drag for so
much as a day, and above all we should not permit
our people to fall under the spell of pacifist dreams

BACK UP THE FIGHTING MEN 185

or possible pacifist actions. There should not be in
termission of so much as a week in sending our troops
across the seas. This war won't be won by food, or
by money, or by savings, or by Thrift Stamps, or by
the Red Cross, or by anything else, although all of
these will help win the war. It will be won by the
valor of the fighting men at the front, and this valor
will fail unless our fighting men at the front are
millions strong.

Every week this summer and fall we should be
putting fresh troops by scores of thousands across
the ocean, and now, to-day, this week, we should
provide for placing a larger army in the field next
spring than Germany itself, or France and England
combined. We are a more populous, a richer country
than Germany, we have a larger population than
Great Britain and France combined. These nations
have fought for four years. We have only just begun
to fight. Let us at once mobilize the whole man
power of this country between the ages of nineteen
and fifty or sixty. The draft should take in all men
of nineteen, even if they were not sent abroad until
they were twenty years old. Let us act at once.
Perhaps we can beat the Germans this year if we
keep pouring our troops over with the utmost speed.
But let us take no chances. Let us proceed upon the
assumption that Germany will fight next spring, and
therefore let us act instantly so that by spring we
will have in France an army of fighting men, ex
clusive of non-combatants and exclusive of home
depots, which shall amount to four million armed

1 86 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

soldiers at the very least. Let us fight beside the
French, the British, the Italians, and be ready to
fight instantly in the Balkan Peninsula and in Asia
Minor against the Germans and all her vassal states.
There must be no delay, not by so much as one hour,
and no letting-up for one moment in the cause of
our entire strength.

THE AMERICANS WHOM WE MOST

DELIGHT TO HONOR

AUGUST i, 1918

AT long intervals in the history of a nation there
come great days when the picked sons of the Nation
determine for generations to come that nation's
place in history. During the last few weeks our
fighting men in France have rendered all the rest of
us forever their debtors. They have won high honor
for themselves and for their country. Our children's
children will owe them deep gratitude for what they
have done. All Americans hold their heads higher
because of their deeds.

Their achievement has been won at the cost of
perseverance in training and of resolution in facing
unbelievable hardship and fatigue. It has also cost
and will cost the death, the crippling, and the
wounding of many scores of thousands of our best
and bravest. We who stay behind in ease and com
fort, who show our patriotism by economizing on
sugar or wheat or beef instead of by living in our

HONORED AMERICANS 187

clothes until they rot off us in the trenches, or who
pay money for taxes and bonds and Thrift Stamps
instead of paying with our blood, owe an incalculable
debt to the men at the front and to the mothers,
wives, and little children of those who are killed at
the front. We must pay this debt.

The debt is due to our wonderful fighting men at
the front individually, to our army collectively, and
to this Nation as a whole. We must provide for the
crippled men and for the widows and children of the
dead. Nothing that we can do wrill lighten the bitter
sorrow of those who have lost the men they loved;
stern pride in the courage and gallant devotion of
those who are dead is the only staff that will help to
carry that burden for the living. But the material
needs of the survivors must be met with ample
generosity and yet in the only permanently effective
fashion, by training those who need help to help
themselves and achieve an ever-increasing self-
respect and self-reliance.

We must now help the army as a whole by strain
ing every nerve without a day's delay immensely to
increase our strength, our numbers, and our re
sources at the front. We should provide now, and as
a matter of fact we ought to have provided six
months ago, for an army of six or seven million men,
so that when next spring opens we may have at least
four million fighting men at the front. We are more
populous than Germany, or France and Great
Britain combined, and we should provide so that
two years after we entered the war our army shall

1 88 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

be as large as Germany's or as the combined forces
of our allies in France. We should speed to the limit
the work of the ships, guns, and airplanes. At
present our army is in France mainly because of the
aid of British ships, and it is able to fight mainly
because of the field cannon and even airplanes it
has received from the French. The draft limit
should be immensely increased and the exceptions
immensely decreased.

To stand by the army is to stand by the Nation,
and therefore to stand by the Allies to whom our
national faith is plighted. This war will be won by
the fighting men at the front. All other work is
merely auxiliary and is entirely subordinate to theirs.
Let us provide for the army instantly, and let us
provide for the Nation's future permanently by at
once introducing the policy of universal obligatory
military training for all our young men.

The fighting men at the front are the men most
worthy of honor. Let every American lad hereafter
be trained so that in time of need he can fill this
most honorable of all positions.

SOUND NATIONALISM AND SOUND
INTERNATIONALISM

AUGUST 4, 1918

THE glorious victory of the Allies in the second
battle of the Marne, a victory in which the hard-
fighting soldiers of the American army have borne

SOUND NATIONALISM 189

so distinguished and honorable a part, may mean the
failure of the German military offensive for this year.
Therefore it may mean a renewal of the German
peace offensive. No man can prophesy in these
matters, but the Germans may continue the war for
a long time; and therefore we should prepare to
have in France an army of four million fighting men
for the battle front next spring. But the Germans
may try to make peace instead of continuing the war,
and may seek to cover their retention of some of
their ill-gotten substantial gains by nominal and
theoretical support of some glittering proposal about
a league of nations to end all war. They will thereby
hope to keep part of their booty by appealing to
what is vaguely called internationalism and getting
the support not only of sentimentalists who do not
like to look unpleasant facts in the face, but also of
the good people who are appalled and puzzled and
panic-struck by the horror Germany has brought on
the world, and who, instead of bracing themselves
to put down this horror by their own hardened
strength and iron will, clutch at any quack remedy
which false prophets hold out as offering a substitute
for such action.

Therefore it is well at this time for sober and
resolute men and women to apply that excellent
variety of wisdom colloquially known as " horse
sense " to the problems of nationalism and inter
nationalism. These problems will not be solved by
rhetoric. Least of all will they be solved by competi
tive rhetoric. Masters of phrase-making may win

190 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

immense, although evanescent, applause by outvy
ing one another in words that glitter, but these
glittering words will not have one shred of lasting
effect on the outcome except in so far as they may
have a very mischievous effect if they persuade
people to abandon the possible real good in the
fantastic effort to achieve an impossible, unreal
perfection. Let honest men and women remember
that this kind of phrase-mongering does not repre
sent idealism. The only idealism worth considering
in the workaday business of this world is applied
idealism. This is merely another way of saying that
permanent good to humanity only comes from actu
ally trying to reduce ideals to practice, and this
means that the ideals must be substantially or at
least measurably realizable.

The professed internationalist usually sneers at
nationalism, at patriotism, and at what we call
Americanism. He bids us forswear our love of
country in the name of love of the world at large.
We nationalists answer that he has begun at the
wrong end; we say that as the world now is, it is
only the man who ardently loves his country first
who in actual practice can help any other country at
all. The internationalist bids us promise to abandon
the idea of keeping America permanently ready to
defend her rights by her strength, and to trust, in
stead, to scraps of paper, to written agreements by
which all nations form a league, and agree to disarm
and agree each to treat all other nations, big or little,
on an exact equality. We nationalists answer that

SOUND NATIONALISM 191

we are ready to join any league to enforce peace or
similar organization which offers a likelihood of in
some measure lessening the number and the area of
future wars, but only on condition that in the first
place we do not promise what will not or ought not
to be performed, or be guilty of proclaiming a sham,
and that in the second place we do not surrender
our right and duty to prepare our own strength for
our own defense instead of trusting to the above-
mentioned scraps of paper. In justification we point
to certain very obvious facts which ought to be
patent to every man of common sense.

Any such league of nations must, of course, in
clude the nine nations which have the greatest
military strength or it will be utterly impotent.
These nine nations include Germany, Austria,
Turkey, and Russia. The first three have abun
dantly shown during the last four years that no
written or other promise of the most binding kind
has even the slightest effect upon their actions. The
fourth, Russia, under the lead and dominion of the
Bolsheviki, has just been guilty of the grossest pos
sible betrayal of her allies and of the small kindred
Slavonic peoples and of world democracy. This
betrayal was in the interest of a military and des
potic autocracy and included the direct violation of
Russia's plighted faith. Under such conditions it is
unnecessary to say that Russia's signature to any
future league to enforce peace will not be worth the
paper on which it is written. Therefore the creation
of any such league for the future will simply mean a

192 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

pledge by the present Allies to make their alliance
perpetual and all to go to war again whenever one
of them is attacked. This may become necessary,
but it certainly does not imply future disarmament.
Nor is this all. The United States must come into
court with clean hands. She must not pledge herself
without reservation to the right of " self-deter
mination " for each people while she has behaved
toward Haiti and San Domingo as she is now behav
ing. It is not possible for me to say whether our
action in these two cases has been right or wrong,
because the Administration, with its usual horror of
publicity, whether pitiless or otherwise, and its
inveterate predilection for secret and furtive diplo
macy, has kept most of the facts hidden. I believe
that there was no possible excuse for such secret
diplomacy in these cases and that the same course
should have been followed as was followed in the
case of the Panama revolution, where every fact
was immediately laid without reservation before
Congress. But even if I am wrong in my belief in
the general principle of open diplomacy, and even if
the Administration is right in its consistent policy
of secret diplomacy as regards the mass of questions
which I think ought to be made public, the fact
remains that we have with armed force invaded,
made war upon, and conquered the two small re
publics, have upset their governments, have denied
them the right of self-determination, and have made
democracy within their limits not merely unsafe but
non-existent. As we have no published facts to go

SOUND NATIONALISM 193

on, I cannot say whether their misconduct did or
did not warrant such drastic action on our part, but
on the assumption that the Administration acted
properly, we are committed to the principle that
some nations are not fit for self-determination, that
democracy within their limits is a sham, and that
their offenses against justice and right are such as to
render interference by their more powerful and more
civilized neighbors imperative. I do not doubt that
this principle is true in some cases, whether or not it
ought to be applied in these two particular cases. In
any event, our continuing action in San Domingo and
Haiti makes it hypocritical for us to lay down any uni
versal rules about self-determination for all nations.
Our action also shows how utterly futile it would
be to try to treat a league to enforce peace as a sub
stitute for training our own strength for our own de
fense. Let China be the witness of the truth of this
statement. China has actually realized the ideal of
the pacifists who insist that unpreparedness for war
secures peace. The ideal of the internationalists is
that patriotism and sense of nationalism are detri
mental to humanity, and the ideal of the Socialists
is that the capitalist regime is the only cause of
popular misery. China is helpless to attack others or
defend herself, her people have little sense of national
unity and pride, and there are in China huge dis
tricts where there are no capitalists and where the
misery of the people is greater than in any country of
the Occident. China's helplessness, instead of help
ing toward world peace, has been a positive encour-

194 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

agement to war and violence among her neighbors.
Her future depends primarily, not on herself, but on
what her neighbors choose to do. In spite of her size
and her enormous population and resources, she is
helpless to do good to others because she is power
less to prevent others from doing evil to her. Her
agreement to a league of nations or to a league to
enforce peace would be worthless, because she is
unable to put strength back of justice either for
herself or for any one else. The pacifists and inter
nationalists if they had their way would turn the
United States into the China of the Occident.

Let us put our trust neither in rhetoric nor hypoc
risy, whether conscious or unconscious. Let us be
honest with ourselves. Let us look the truth in the
face. Let us remember what Germany, Austria, and
Turkey have actually done. Let us remember what
Russia has suffered from Germany and the worse
than folly with which she has behaved to every one
else. Let us remember what has happened to China
and what we have made happen to Haiti and San
Domingo. Then let us trust for our salvation to a
sound and intense American nationalism.

The horse sense of the matter is that all agree
ments to further the cause of sound internationalism
must be based on recognition of the fact that as the
world is actually constituted our present prime need
is this sound and intense American nationalism.
The first essential of this sound nationalism is that
the Nation shall trust to its own fully prepared
strength for its own defense. So far as possible, its

SOUND NATIONALISM 195

strength must also be used to secure justice for others
and must never be used to wrong others. But unless
we possess and prepare the strength, we can neither
help ourselves nor others. Let us by all means go
into any wise league or covenant among nations to
abolish neutrality (for, of course, a league to enforce
peace is merely another name for a league to abolish
neutrality in every possible war). But let us first
understand what we are promising, and count the
cost and determine to keep our promises. Above all,
let us treat any such agreement or covenant as a
mere addition to, and never as a substitute for, the
preparation in advance of our own armed power.
Next time we behave with the ignoble folly we have
shown during the last four years we may not find
allies to do what France and England and Italy have
done for us. They have protected us with their
navies and armies, their blood and their treasure,
while we first refused to do anything and then slowly
and reluctantly began to harden and make ready
our giant but soft and lazy strength.

No proper scheme designed to secure peace with
out effort and safety without service and sacrifice
will either make this country safe or enable it to do
its international duty toward others.

An American citizen, personally unknown to me,
writes me that his three sons entered the army at
the outbreak of the war, and that one of them, an
aviator, was killed in battle at the front just two
weeks before my own son was killed as he fought in
the air. In his letter my correspondent adds:

196 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

Would that my country might learn and never forget that
not only the winning of peace now, but the maintenance of
peace at all times depends not fundamentally on treaties or
leagues of nations, but on the readiness of citizens to fly to
the aid of the wronged and to give their lives if need be that
justice may be secured.

There speaks the true American spirit which holds
fast alike to fearlessness and to wisdom, to gentle
ness and to iron resolution. There speaks the spirit
of that fervent nationalism which would forbid
America either to inflict or to endure wrong.

THE MAN WHO PAYS AND THE MAN

WHO PROFITS

AUGUST 9, 1918

THE men who do the fighting at the front and their
mothers and wives back here are those who in this
great and terrible crisis are paying — the blood of
the men and the tears of the women, and with the
suffering of men, women, and children — for our
failure to prepare during the two and a half years
before we entered the World War. For this failure to
prepare, in spite of the most vivid warning ever
given a Nation, the warning that befell the rest of
the world during those two and a half years, the pro
fessed pacifists and the politicians who pandered to
them are more responsible than any one else, except
the pro-Germans. If, when the World War broke
out, or at latest when the Lusitania was sunk, we had
done our plain duty, we had then begun to build

THE MAN WHO PAYS 197

ships, field cannon and airplanes, and to train men
exactly as we have been doing during the last year
and a quarter, except that we should have done the
work on a larger scale with more efficiency and with
much less waste and extravagance. Remember that
failure to provide great numbers of cannon and air
planes means that the infantry has to pay for it with
a huge increase of slaughter. All the guns and air
planes we left unbuilt during the first three years of
the war has meant so much more bloodshed, so many
more Americans killed and crippled, not to speak of
the tremendous loss of life to our allies. Moreover,
when men in small numbers are put into battle, when
only a few hundred thousand are forced to suffer
heavy loss in doing work which two or three million
men could have accomplished speedily and thor
oughly and with very little loss, the responsibility
rests on those who prevented the preparation in
•advance. If we had built quantities of ships and
trained large numbers of men in advance, the World
War would have ended almost as soon as we entered,
and an infinite amount of bloodshed would have been
prevented.

The best roll of our army overseas is the American
roll of honor. These men have paid with their bodies
for the safety of this Nation in the present and the
future. They have died, and by their death have
earned for the rest of us the right to hold our heads
high with pride. But it is no less true that their
blood has been shed, but their gallant lives have been
spent because we did not prepare in advance. We

198 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

did not prepare because our people were misled. For
this misleading of the people the professional prof
iteers share the responsibility with the pro-Ger
mans, with sham sentimentalists, with the sordid,
short-sighted materialists, and with all the politi
cians, publicists, and private citizens, rich or poor,
whose vanity or folly or self-interest profited thereby.
We ought not to remember this in any spirit of re
venge, but most certainly, unless we are worse than
foolish, we shall remember it and other warnings to
teach us how to behave in the future, and as a very
stern warning against again trusting to the leader
ship of the men thus responsible for the deaths of
so many fine and fearless young Americans.

Most of the men who are misled, and some of the
men who misled them, have come frankly forward
to admit their error. What is even more important,
most of them have made the real atonement of deeds.
They have, if young, themselves gone into the army,
and if not young have sent their sons or permitted
them to go into the army and fight in freedom's be
lated battle. All these men are paying their share of
the joint payment in blood of the Nation. They are
to be heartily respected. They are not seeking to
profit by the valor and blood of others.

So much for the men who pay; now for the men
who profit. Some of these men profit in money. If
such profit is excessive it is iniquitous. But a proper
money profit is absolutely necessary, for no business
can be permanent without profit any more than a
working-man can permanently work without wages.

THE MAN WHO PAYS 199

The unpardonable profit is that of the man, espe
cially the rich man, who, having preached pacifism
and unpreparedness, now, when war comes, sees
brave men face a death which pacifism and unpre
paredness have made infinitely more probable while
he himself and his sons profit by these other men's
courage and sit at home in the ease and safety se
cured by the fact that these others face death. The
worst profiteers in this country are the men and the
sons of the men who decline to face the death which
their own actions have made more probable for
others.

Unless in exceptional cases there is no need to
discuss individuals in private life. But when a man
seeks public office, it becomes a duty to discuss his
record. Mr. Henry Ford is a candidate for United
States Senator in Michigan. No man in this country
strove harder in the cause of pacifism and unpre
paredness than he did during the vital two years and
a half before this country went to war. He received
the cordial applause of the peace-at-any-price people
who were themselves, of course, efficiently playing
the pro-German game. He is a multi-millionaire. If
any of his kin are killed, their families are not
merely guarded against poverty, but are sure of
wealth. The son of Mr. Ford ought to feel it ab
solutely obligatory on him to go to the war. There
is not in this country any other man who ought to
feel it more honorably necessary to pay with his
body, if necessary, to atone with his life for the
dreadful wrong done this country by the preachers of

200 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

pacifism and unpreparedness during the two years
and a half that preceded our entry into the war. Yet
it is announced in the press that Mr. Ford's son has
obtained exemption from military service and is
employed in the money-making business of his
wealthy father.

Mr. Ford's proper place is on the mourner's bench
and not at the council board of the Nation.

OUR DEBT TO THE BRITISH EMPIRE

AUGUST 16, 1918

JUDGE BEN LINDSEY has recently written two or
three striking pieces about what Great Britain has
done and is doing in this war. Incidentally he points
out how far ahead of us she now is in certain types
of social legislation, such as that dealing with
children. But the lesson he inculcates which is of
most immediate concern is the giant part England
has played in this war and the debt we owe to her
because, in standing up for Belgium and France, she
was really defending us during our days of folly when
we followed the lead of our worst enemies, the paci
fists and pro-Germans.

The English pacifists are, if anything, even more
silly than our own. They did their best to make
England keep out of this war. If they had succeeded
the British Empire would for a few years have trod
the broad, smooth road of peaceful and greedy in
famy .and would then have tumbled into the bottom-

OUR DEBT TO THE BRITISH EMPIRE 201

less pit of utter destruction. But in August, 1914,
Great Britain and the gallant overseas common
wealths which share her empire chose the hard path
of immediate danger, of ultimate safety, and of high
heroism. Thereby they saved their own souls and
the bodies of their children, and in so doing rendered
an inestimable service to us.

England has raised an immense army which has
fought in Europe, Asia, and Africa. If it were not
for this army even the highly trained valor of the
French could not have averted German victory. At
the same time the British fleet has kept the seas free
for the food and coal and munitions needed for the
Allied people and armies and has furnished the trans
ports necessary to enable us to put under Pershing a
force large enough to be of real consequence in the
vitally important battle which has been raging for
the last thirty days. If Great Britain had not been
far-sighted enough to realize what her own welfare
demanded when France was invaded, and if she had
not been stirred to noble indignation by the Belgian
horror, the whole civilized world would now have
been cowering under the brutal dominion of Ger
many. If she had not controlled the seas, not an
American battalion could have been sent to the aid
of France as she struggled to save the soul of the
world, and no help could have been given gallant
Italy or any others of these Allied nations to whose
stern fighting efficiency we owe it that this earth is
still a place on which free men can live.

We must stand by Great Britain precisely as we

202 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

stand by our other allies — in the first place, by
waging the war with all our strength, and in the
next place by seeing that the peace is of a kind which
justifies them for all the sacrifices they have made.
One item in waging the war ought to be insistence
that every American of fighting age who resides in
the British Empire and every Englishman of fight
ing age who resides in the United States be invari
ably put in either the British or the American armies.
One item in making peace ought to be insistence that
Britain keep every colony she has conquered from
Germany, both in the South Seas and in Africa.
Germany has behaved abominably in Africa. The
course Germany has followed in Africa has made her
a menace of evil to the Boer and British Africanders,
and to return to her the colonies which have been
taken from her, whether in Africa or Asia, by
Australia or Great Britain, or by France or Japan or
Belgium, would be a crime against civilization.

THE CANDIDACY OF HENRY FORD,
AUGUST 20, 1918

EVERY loyal American citizen in Michigan should
read the last two numbers of Mr. George Harvey's
War Weekly. In these numbers there are quotations
from Mr. Henry Ford's speeches made two years ago
and again since we entered the war. Mr. Ford has
not questioned the accuracy of these quotations
given by Mr. Harvey.,

THE CANDIDACY OF HENRY FORD 203

Speaking of American flags over his own factory
Mr. Ford said: " I don't believe in the flag. When
the war is over these flags shall come down never to
go up again."

The Sedition Act, approved by President Wilson,
inflicts a maximum punishment of twenty years in
the penitentiary for any man who, while we are at
war, utters " language intended to bring the flag
of the United States into contempt or disrepute."
During the last year many poor and ignorant men
have been convicted and sentenced for using lan
guage thus forbidden by law. In my view the fact
that Mr. Ford is an enormously wealthy man ought
not to give him immunity from the law if he cannot
show that he did not use the la'nguage quoted in the
War Weekly. But whether or not amenable to the
law, no patriotic American can afford to put in the
Senate, perhaps to help negotiate the peace treaty, a
man who announces that as soon as peace comes he
wishes to haul down the American flag and never
again to hoist it. To send such a man to the Senate
professing such sentiments under existing conditions
would give the enemy a wholly wrong idea of the
pacifist sentiment in our country. There is nothing
in the world which would now help Germany as
much, or give her so much heart in her struggle for
the overthrow of liberty and democracy as the belief
that men professing such sentiments would have part
in the peace negotiations on behalf of this country.

Among the further utterances of Mr. Ford (as
given in the War Weekly) is one that he does " not

204 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

believe in patriotism " and that he does not care any
more for the United States " than for China or
Hindustan." The man who does not believe in
patriotism is not fit to live in this country, still less
to represent it in the Senate. If these words of Mr.
Ford mean anything, then Mr. Ford is unpatriotic
and has no more right to sit in the United States
Senate than a Hindu or a Chinaman. Unless Mr.
Ford can show that he never uttered these words no
man worthy to be called an American, and least of
all any religious or patriotic man, can afford to
support him for the Senate.

Mr. Ford has been given immensely valuable war
contracts of the Government. No doubt he has ex
ecuted them as well as the thousands of other con
tractors who now render service to the Government
for pay. But no service he can thus render the
Government can offset the frightful damage he did
our people by the lavish use he made of his enormous
wealth in a gigantic and profoundly anti-American
propaganda against preparedness and against our
performance of international duty during the two
and a half years before we entered the war. This
crusade against righteousness included the sending
of the ridiculous " peace ship " to Europe. This
particular manifestation was too absurd even to do
harm, but so far as it had any effect at all it encour
aged Germany to believe that we were as neutral
between right and wrong as Pontius, and that as far
as we were concerned she could safely proceed with
wrongdoing because we held the scales of judgment

THE CANDIDACY OF HENRY FORD 205

even between the wrongdoer and his victim. The
crusade also included an extraordinary series of
advertisements issued long after the Lusitania was
sunk, in which Mr. Ford violently opposed and de
nounced preparedness, advocated and approved the
McLemore resolutions, and announced that it was
our duty to keep out of war; and not merely himself
kept silent about the wrongdoing of Germany, but
assailed those who set forth this wrongdoing on the
ground that they " had bred racial hatred by the
printing of incendiary news stories and articles."
It may well be doubted whether this propaganda did
not do more damage to the American people than
the propaganda carried on at the same time by
Ambassador Bernstorff.

If we had seen our duty and had fully prepared
during these two and a half years, either we would
never have had to enter the war or we would have
brought it to a close immediately after we entered it.
The best and bravest of the young men of the Nation
are now paying with their blood for our unprepared-
ness and therefore for the pacific propaganda quite
as much as for the pro-German propaganda carried
on in this country during the two and a half years
before we entered the war. But wealthy Mr. Ford's
son is not among these men. He is of draft age. He
applied for exemption. The local board refused his
application. He applied to the President. The
President did not act for two months. Then the
revised draft regulations were promulgated, and Mr.
Ford was excepted under the deferred or exempted

206 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

class which included a married man with a child,
however wealthy that man might be. He has exer
cised his legal right. Very many thousands of young
Americans, men of small means who are not sons of
multi-millionaires, have declined to take advantage
of this legal right. They have left their wives and
babies to go to war for a great ideal, for love of
country, for love of liberty and of civilization. But
Mr. Ford's son stays at home. These other young
Americans face death and endure unspeakable hard
ships and misery and fatigue for the sake of America
and have surrendered all hope of money-getting, of
comfort and, of safety. But young Mr. Ford, in ease
and safety, is in the employ of his wealthy father.

In private relations I understand that Mr. Ford
is an amiable man. But I am not dealing with him in
his private relations. I am discussing him as a candi
date for high office. We are bound truthfully to set
forth what we believe will be the effect of his elec
tion, and therefore we are bound to say that it
would be damaging to the United States and would
be encouraging to Germany. No patriotic American
should support Mr. Ford.

SPEED UP THE WORK FOR THE ARMY

AND GIVE ALL WHO ENTER IT

FAIR PLAY

AUGUST 23, 1918

OUR Government must learn that needless delay is
worse than a blunder. We are sending troops to

SPEED UP THE WORK FOR THE ARMY 207

Siberia. This is good, but it would have been ten
times better to have sent them last spring when the
need was precisely as evident as it is now. The Ad
ministration is now preparing to ask Congress to
arrange for putting between three and four million
men in France by next July. Six months ago our best
military advisers and our most far-sighted civilian
leaders were urging that we prepare to put five
million men in France by next March. The delay
has been absolutely needless and may be very harm
ful. When last spring the demand for five million
men was being incessantly urged, President Wilson
treated it as merely a case for competitive rhetoric,
and asked, with dramatic effect, why we should
limit the number at all. But he actually has limited
it to a much smaller number at a much later date.
Therefore let there at least be no further delay. And
above all let us not be misled by the persons who say
that Germany will make peace before next spring.
Our business is to act on the assumption that we
shall have to put forth our utmost effort next spring
and not to take any unnecessary chances.

The Government is now very properly proposing
to enlarge the draft age limits to include all the men
of fighting age, all the men of the ages which fur
nished the enormous majority of the soldiers of the
Civil War. The number of men in the excepted
classes should be greatly reduced. There are too
many exceptions. It is earnestly to be hoped that
the plan will include the institution of universal
obligatory military training of all our young men

208 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

of eighteen to twenty years old as a permanent
policy.

But we ought not to adopt the plan recently
proposed for special advantages to be given by the
Government to young men who go to college and
take certain special courses with a view to becoming
officers. This would amount to giving a special
privilege to persons with money enough to send their
boys to college in order to have them escape the
draft and secure commissions. This is not fair. It
means giving a privilege to money. There is no
excuse for giving such a preference to young men of
eighteen or nineteen at this time when we have been
at war eighteen months. There is still need to give
some of the older men a special chance to train. But
there is no such need in the case of men under
twenty-one.

There was every reason of sound public policy at
the outset of the war to take advantage of the fore
thought and self-denial of the young men who at the
Plattsburg and similar camps had at their own ex
pense prepared themselves before the war began, and
when, owing to the failure of the Government to do
its duty, they were the only men who did prepare.
There has been good reason for similar camps for
young men during the last eighteen months before
our general training camps began to show their full
results. But from now on every young officer should
be chosen on his merits from the men who enter the
army in the ranks. Only the men who show their
fitness, by whatever tests are deemed necessary

: SENATOR LODGE'S NOBLE SPEECH 209

after service in the ranks, should be sent to officers'
schools, and money should play no part whatever in
the matter.

SENATOR LODGE'S NOBLE SPEECH

SEPTEMBER i, 1918

SENATOR LODGE'S speech dealing with the principles
for which we are fighting and setting forth in detailed
outline the kind of peace which alone will mean the
peace of victory was a really noble speech. Nothing
is easier, and from the national standpoint as dis
tinguished from the standpoint of personal benefit to
the speaker, nothing is less useful than a speech of
such glittering generalities that almost anybody can
interpret it in almost any manner. Only a great
statesman possesses the courage, the knowledge, and
the power of expression to set forth in convincing
fashion the detailed statement of the objects which
must be attained if such a war as that in which we
are engaged is to be crowned by a peace wholly
worth the terrible cost of life and happiness caused
by the war. This is the service which Senator Lodge
has rendered to this Nation and to our allies.

From time to time in our history the Senate has
rendered services of exceptional magnitude to the
Nation. Never in our history has it rendered greater
service than during the last nine months. The great
est men who have ever sat in it, men such as Clay
and Webster and Calhoun and Benton, did not

210 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

stand forth in leadership more clearly than a dozen
of the Senators who, during the last nine months,
have fearlessly and disinterestedly borne the burden
of speeding up the war and endeavoring to place our
international relations on exactly the right lines.

These leaders have in actual fact adjourned
politics. They have considered only their patriotic
duty in all matters concerning this war and our rela
tions with our allies and our enemies. The most
efficient service toward speeding up the war and
enabling this Nation to do its duty that has been
rendered by any civilian public servants of the
Nation is the service rendered by Senator Chamber
lain and the Senators, both Democrats and Repub
licans, who acted with him on the Military Affairs
Committee in the investigation of the War Depart
ment last winter. Within the last fortnight a service
of similar character has been rendered by Senator
Thomas and his associates in both parties on the sub
committee which has at last put before the people
the truth about the breakdown of our aircraft
programme. The fact that this summer we have put
masses of armed men into France is primarily due
to Senator Chamberlain and the Senators of both
parties who have acted with him. The fact that
next summer we shall at last back up American
troops with American airplanes will be due primarily
to Senator Thomas and his associates.

APPLIED PATRIOTISM 211

APPLIED PATRIOTISM

SEPTEMBER 8, 1918

THE official record of the Illinois branch of the
United Mine Workers of America furnishes an in
structive lesson in applied patriotism. The presi
dent of the branch is Mr. Frank Farrington. The
United Mine Workers are affiliated with the Ameri
can Federation of Labor.

President Farrington's circulars to the Illinois
mine workers set forth the need and the justice of
this war and the duty of patriotic Americans in the
most straightforward and clear-cut fashion. He
states that this is the war for liberty and humanity
and for American rights, and that there rests " upon
every American and upon every man who has par
taken of America's bounty the solemn obligation of
loyally doing their part to win victory for the cause
America represents." He promises the mine workers
that their rights shall be protected and secured, but
insists that they shall lend every energy to increase
the output of coal so as to help our army at the front,
which, as he finely says, includes " sons of the rich
and sons of the poor men who love life as one, but
who prefer death to life without liberty and who
have made common cause and entered the lists in
answer to the Nation's need."

The improper practices are specifically pointed
out and condemned, such as shutting down mines in
violation of agreement in order to force some desired

212 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

condition, or making improper restrictions to curtail
production. The appeal is solemnly made to, and on
behalf of, the miners' union that there must be full
service to the Nation and no shirking of duty, and
that no agreement into which the union enters shall
be treated as a scrap of paper, but shall be in good
faith fulfilled. President Farrington in his official
circulars lays constantly increasing stress upon the
seriousness of the obligation resting upon the miners
to aid and sustain the Allied armies in their fight for
the freedom of humanity by hard, steady work and
by increasing the output of coal. He condemns with
genuine loftiness of feeling and expression all who
fail to give the utmost help to the men who at the
front are doing so much and suffering so much.

The Illinois mine workers number about ninety
thousand members. They are divided into three
hundred and twenty local unions. Of these I have
figures from only one hundred and twenty. They
have sent over four thousand men into the army and
navy of the United States, have purchased over two
million dollars' worth of Liberty bonds, $700,000 of
War Savings Stamps, and have contributed over
$90,000 to the Red Cross and over $20,000 to other
war funds.

The Illinois mine workers have made a fine show
ing in applied patriotism.

GOOD LUCK TO THE ANTI-BOLSHEVISTS 213

GOOD LUCK TO THE ANTI -BOLSHEVISTS
OF KANSAS

SEPTEMBER 12, 1918

THE absolute prerequisite for successful self-govern
ment in any people is the power of self-restraint
which refuses to follow either the wild-eyed extrem
ists of radicalism or the dull-eyed extremists of
reaction. Either set of extremists will wreck the
Nation just as certainly as the other. The Nation
capable of self-government must show the Abraham
Lincoln quality of refusing to go with either. The
dreadful fall which has befallen Russia is due to the
fact that when her people cast off the tyranny of the
autocracy, they did not have sufficient self-control
and common sense to avoid rushing into the gulf of
Bolshevist anarchy.

In this country there are plenty of highbrow
Bolsheviki who like to think of themselves as intel
lectuals, and who in parlors and at pink teas preach
Bolshevism as a fad. They are fatuously ignorant
that it may be a dangerous fad. Some of them
are mere make-believe, sissy Bolsheviki, almost or
quite harmless. Others are sincere and foolish fa
natics, who mean well and who do not realize that
their doctrines tend toward moral disintegration.
But there are practical Bolsheviki in this country
who are in no sense highbrows. The I.W.W. and the
Non-Partisan League, just as long and so far as
its members submit to the dominion of leaders like

214 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

Mr. Townley, represent the forces that under Lenine
and Trotzky have brought ruin to Russia. If these
organizations obtained power here, they would cast
this country into the same abyss with Russia.

The I.W.W. activities may have been officially set
forth by the Chicago jury which found the I.W.W.
leaders guilty of treasonable practices. These leaders
protested that they were only trying to help " the
wage slave of to-day," and had not taken German
money. But the jury found them guilty as charged.
The American people, when fully awake and aroused,
will tolerate neither treason nor anarchy. No
Americans are more patriotic than the honest
American labor men, and these above all had cause
to rejoice in the verdict. Undoubtedly there are
plenty of poor ignorant men who join the I.W.W.
because they feel they do not receive justice. We
should all of us actively unite in the effort to right
any wrongs from which these men suffer. But we
should set our faces like flint against such criminal
leadership as that of the I.W.W.

The Non- Partisan League endeavored to ally
itself with the I.W.W. since we entered the war.
When the League was started, I felt much sympathy
with its avowed purposes. I hope for and shall wel
come wisely radical action on behalf of the farmer.
But only destruction to all of us can come from the
venomous class hatred preached by the present
leadership of the League. Some of its leaders have
been convicted and imprisoned for treasonable
activities. Some of the League's representatives

GOOD LUCK TO THE ANTI-BOLSHEVISTS 215

have been actively pro-Germans. Some are Social
ists or Socialist-Anarchists. For the first six months
of the war and until it became too dangerous, they
were openly against the war, against our allies, and
for Germany. The only half-secret alliance between
these leaders and certain high Democratic politicians
is deeply discreditable to the latter. The victory of
the League in its recent efforts to gain control of the
Republican Party in Minnesota and Montana would
have given immense strength to the pro-German and
Bolshevist element throughout the country and its
defeat was a matter of rejoicing to all right-minded
and patriotic men.

Mr. Townley's leadership in its moral purpose and
national effect entitles him to rank with Messrs.
Lenine and Trotzky, and the utterances of the
League's official organ, especially in its appeals to
class hatred, puts the official representatives of the
League squarely in the clan with the Bolshevist
leaders who have done such evil in Russia.

I have before me an official letter from the League
written in January last refusing to cooperate in non-
political work for the benefit of the farmers, saying,
' This organization is a political one, the farmers
being organized for the purpose of controlling legis
lation in their own interests." In other words, the
title, Non- Partisan, is a piece of pure hypocrisy, and
its league is really partisan in the narrowest and
worst sense. Americans should organize politically
as Americans and not as bankers, or lawyers, or
farmers, or wage- workers. To organize politically on

2i6 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

the basis adopted by the League is thoroughly anti-
American and unpatriotic, and if copied generally
by our citizens, would mean the creation in this
country of rival political parties based on cynically
brutal class selfishness.

I have no doubt that the rank and file of the
members of the League are good, honest people who
have been misled. I am certain that there has been
much neglect of the rights of the farmers and that
it is a high duty for this country to begin a con
structive, practical agricultural policy. But no good
American can support the League while it is domi
nated by its present leadership. The Kansans who
have joined to fight the League because it represents
Bolshevism are rendering a patriotic service to
America.

THE FOURTH LIBERTY LOAN

SEPTEMBER 17, 1918

THE Government of the United States is asking us
Americans, is asking us, the citizens of the United
States, to subscribe to the Fourth Liberty Loan, a
bigger loan than any yet issued. It is our duty to
back up the Government by floating the loan. More
over, the performance of this duty should be treated
by us as a high privilege. It opens to us a fine oppor
tunity to put our shoulders with all the strength we
have into the great shove which is pushing the
German barrier back across the Rhine.

THE FOURTH LIBERTY LOAN 217

The Liberty bonds are the best of all possible in
vestments. Their security and their interest returns
give them a peculiar position. Moreover, every one
can invest in big or little amounts, exactly as his
resources permit. All the people of this country can
now become bondholders if they wish. Therefore,
all investors in the bonds will get benefits, but what
is vastly more important, they will give benefits.
They will therefore render service to the country.

We Americans are not, and must not permit
ourselves to become, swayed by question of material
gain in this war. We must think primarily of our
duties. We must keep our minds fixed on what we
owe to others, and what we owe to ourselves. We
owe a service to humanity. Our sons and brothers
at the front pay this service in blood. The rest of us
must pay it in money.

Commensurate with the great resources and un
paralleled prosperity with which our Nation has been
blessed, we owe all the more because for three years
the debt accumulated, while other nations were bear
ing the burden for us. We thank God we have begun
to pay. From every village and city of every state
the best of our young men are streaming across the
Atlantic to join the victorious army under Foch and
Pershing. The men and women of America are keep
ing mill and shipyard and munition factory and mine
busy to the limit, so that the troops may not fail
nor the supplies on which they depend be lacking.

All this is not one whit more than we ought to do;
it is what we owe to the world and owe to ourselves.

2i8 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

We are glad and proud to do it. Let us, as part pay
ment of our great debt, subscribe and oversubscribe
to the bonds of the Fourth Liberty Loan. This is
a service which lies within the ability of the poorest
of us. It is the duty and privilege of every right
American. Every dollar put into Liberty loans is a
dollar working for the downfall of the system of
greed and treachery, of tyranny and callous brutality
which has drenched the world in blood.

Americans are not quitters. The Kaiser's troops
cannot stop our men at the front. Nothing must be
permitted to stop the flow into the treasury of the
money with which we back up these men. Sloth and
easy living have no place in America now. We must
give, give to the utmost. If putting our money at
the disposal of the Government requires us to work
harder and live more simply, we shall be the better
for it. Let us buy these Liberty bonds to the utmost
of our capacity and thereby show the men at the
front that the people at home will back them to the
limit.

FAIR PLAY AND NO POLITICS

SEPTEMBER 20, 1918

A DEMOCRATIC member of the Senate has introduced
a resolution to investigate the primary campaign
expenses of certain Republican candidates for the
Senate, including Commander Truman Newberry,
whose recent triumph over Mr. Henry Ford in the

FAIR PLAY AND NO POLITICS 219

Michigan Republican primaries was greeted with
heartfelt thanks by every sincere and far-sighted
American patriot.

This Senate, which comes to an end on March 4
next, has the same, and only the same right to in
vestigate the election conduct of candidates for the
Senate which comes into existence on March 4
that it has to investigate the campaign conduct of
any other candidates for office.

Moreover, any such proposed investigation under
taken on the eve of an election is tainted with bad
faith unless it is conducted with conspicuous fairness
and impartiality and is undertaken at once so that it
can be finished at least a month before the elections.
Personally, I shall be glad if the election expenses or
any other conduct of any of the candidates be in
vestigated, provided that the investigation be under
taken at once and finished within the next fortnight,
and provided that it be entirely impartial. There
fore, it must deal comprehensively with all serious
charges affecting the desirability of candidates as
governmental representatives of the American people
at this time.

If the men backing the proposal are acting in good
faith they will investigate Mr. Ford's record on the
following points in order to determine his fitness to
represent patriotic Americans at this time. They
will find out how much money he spent on the peace
ship, and on his lavishly expensive newspaper adver
tising campaign against preparedness, and against
our standing up for Belgium's rights, and against

220 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

our taking action about Germany's sinking the Lusi-
tania and her other assaults on us, and in favor of
the McLemore resolution. This was part of the
great pacifist campaign of which another part, as our
government investigations show, was financed by
the German authorities themselves or by their affili
ated societies in this country.

The investigation should include Mr. Ford's con
tributions in the last presidential campaign and the
names of the candidates he supported, for his politics
seem to have been purely personal and pacifist.

Moreover, the investigation should include a full
examination of the justification for Mr. Ford's aiding
and abetting his son Edsell in escaping draft and
staying at home when the great majority of young
Americans of his age are eagerly striving for places
of honor and peril at the front. Mr. Ford is an enor
mously wealthy man. Mr. Newberry is not. Mr.
Newberry himself at once entered the military serv
ice of the United States. His two sons have wives
and children, but they immediately entered the
service, striving eagerly to get to the front. Mr.
Edsell Ford waited until he was drafted, then fought
hard for an exemption, which the local board dis
allowed. He succeeded, however, in escaping service
and is at home.

Unless the investigation takes up these matters, it
will be stamped with the stamp of unworthy and im
proper partisanship. The simple truth is that all
patriotic Americans rejoice in the nomination and
will rejoice in the election at this time of such

SPIES AND SLACKERS ' 221

Americans as Mr. Newberry in Michigan and Mr.
Medill McCormick in Illinois.

SPIES AND SLACKERS

SEPTEMBER 24, 1918

MERCY to the German spy or pacifist slacker in
America is foul injustice to the American soldier in
France and to his brother, who is preparing to go to
France. Our Government has been altogether too
weak in dealing with the pacifist slackers and so-
called conscientious objectors. It has actually issued
elaborate instructions for and to these creatures
practically telling them how to escape doing the duty
which all patriotic Americans are proudly eager to
perform.

There is not the slightest excuse for such weakness.
No man has any right to remain in a free country like
ours if he refuses, whether conscientiously or un-
conscientiously, to do the duties of peace and of war
which are necessary if it is to be kept free. The true
lovers of peace recognize their duty to fight for
freedom. The Society of Friends has furnished the
same large proportion of soldiers for this war that it
did for the Civil War.

It is all wrong to permit conscientious objectors to
remain in camp or military posts or to go back to
their homes. They should be treated in one of three
ways: First, demand of them military service, ex
cept the actual use of weapons with intent to kill,

222 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

and if they refuse to render this service treat them as
criminals and imprison them at hard labor; second,
put them in labor battalions and send them to
France behind the lines, where association with
soldiers might have a missionary effect on them and
cause them to forget their present base creed and rise
to worthy levels in an atmosphere of self-sacrifice
and of service and struggle for great ideals; third, if
both of the above procedures are regarded as too
drastic, intern them with alien enemies and send
them permanently out of the country as soon as
possible.

As for the spies, there is no question as to the
treatment needed. They should be shot or hung.
They are public enemies and this is war-time and
they should no more be dealt with by the civil law
than the enemy armies should be so dealt with. The
German spies and secret agents and dynamiters and
murderers in this country are as much a part of
Germany as the soldiers of von Hindenburg. Bis
marck employed thirty thousand of them to dis
organize Germany's foes fifty years ago, and now
Germany is employing them by the hundred thou
sand. They are as formidable as the visible German
army. It was these German spies, agents, and propa
gandists who, in 1917, disintegrated and destroyed
Russia, and inflicted a crushing disaster on Italy,
and conducted the most dangerous intrigue in
France, and aided and abetted the British pacifists.

In this country Senator Overman has estimated
their number at four hundred thousand, and Mr,

SPIES AND SLACKERS 223

Flynn, the recently resigned chief of the secret serv
ice, has put them at a quarter of a million. Our
official government reports have shown that in
obedience to orders from the German Government
they have carried on in all hostile and even neutral
countries a systematic warfare by means of aiding
pacifists' movements, inciting strikes, fomenting dis
loyalty, and employing direct action dynamiters and
murderers. They have received aid and cooperation,
conscientiously and unconscientiously, by many
evils in pacifist and Bolshevist societies and in
organizations like the I.W.W. and Non-Partisan
League.

The activities of the German spies, agents, and
sympathizers vary from mere disloyal utterances,
which the Attorney-General of the United States has
stated to be the cause of most of the disorder in the
country, up to seeking to corrupt our soldiers and
practicing sabotage in our munitions works and
factories for war materials. All offenders of the latter
type, wherever committed, can, under the existing
law, be tried by court-martial and executed, and this
is the proper course to follow. It was the course
followed under Lincoln's administration, which is
one of the reasons why Lincoln's administration
differed so markedly from Buchanan's.

The former chief of the secret service says that
there are a quarter of a million of these German spies
and agents in this country. We have ample law to
warrant these being punished with death by sum
mary court-martial, under military law as military

224 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

enemies. We have been at war eighteen months, but
not one spy has thus been punished. This means
grave remissness in the performance of our duty.

QUIT PLAYING FAVORITES

SEPTEMBER 30, 1918

IT is announced that the young men of eighteen or
nineteen included in the draft will be sent free to
college by the Government and will there be given
the chance to earn commissions and escape service
in the ranks.

Either this represents sheer deception or it will
mean gross favoritism. We now have plenty of
young men who have been serving in the ranks for
nearly eighteen months. Scores of thousands of
these left college to go or had just finished high
school when they went. All these boys, whether they
have or have not been to college, are entitled to the
first chance for commissions on equal terms with one
another, except that preference should be given those
who have been engaged in the fighting overseas.
Almost all the second lieutenancies should now be
filled in this manner by promotion from the ranks.
To give to boys now about to enter college the pref
erence over those who have actually served in the
ranks, and especially over those who have actually
faced death overseas, would be a cruel injustice.

But the injustice would be equally great among
the new recruits themselves. It is wholly illusory for

QUIT PLAYING FAVORITES 225

the Government to say it will send to college all who
wish to go. The average working-man or small
farmer has not had money enough to educate his son
so that the boy can now enter college without
further training. Yet that boy may have in him the
qualities of leadership which especially fit him for
command. Such a working-man or farmer ought to
wish, and does wish, that his son be tested on his
merits by actual service in the ranks, alongside of all
other boys, no favors being shown either him or
them. For the Government at this time to send some
of these boys to college and thus give them a start
over the bulk of their fellows represents privilege
given to money and is thoroughly unfair.

For the two years before we entered the war the
only important piece of preparedness was that of the
men who at their own expense went to the Plattsburg
training camp established by General Wood, and
when Germany forced us into war it was impera
tively necessary at once to establish many additional
camps of this kind or we should have had no officers
whatever for our army. It is still advisable to keep a
few training camps for older men whose age and
qualifications especially fit them for certain kinds of
service. But it is not wise nor right for the Govern
ment now to put certain especially favored classes of
boys of eighteen and nineteen into college with a
view to giving them an advantage over their fellows.
This is undemocratic. It is not fair to the other boys
of their age who are not in the army. It is exceed
ingly unfair and unjust to the young men who are

226 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

already enlisted in the army, and especially to those
who have seen service overseas.

From now on no young officer should be appointed
saving after service in the ranks out of which he is
chosen by fair test in comparison with his fellows as
fit to enter an officers' training camp. Moreover,
there should be a resolute effort to give preference to
the men who have served in the front in France, the
very men who are now apt to be neglected.

WAR AIMS AND PEACE PROPOSALS

OCTOBER 12, 1918

OUR war aim ought to be unconditional surrender of
Germany and of her vassal allies, Austria and Tur
key. We ought not to consider any peace proposals
from Germany until this war aim has been accom
plished by the victorious arms of our allies and
ourselves.

It is worthy of note that the Central Powers show
a greedy eagerness to accept the so-called " fourteen
points " laid down by President Wilson. I earnestly
hope that when the time for discussing peace pro
posals comes, we shall ourselves repudiate some of
these fourteen points, and that we shall insist on
having all of them put into plain and straightforward
language before we assent to any of them. Let us
remember that Congress shares with the President
the right to make treaties and that the people are
bound to insist that they, the people, are the ulti-

WAR ATMS AND PEACE PROPOSALS 227

mate arbiters and that their will in the peace treaty
is followed by both the President and the Congress.

For example, what does that one of the fourteen
points referring to the freedom of the seas mean?
If it means what Germany interprets it to mean,
then every decent American ought to be against it.
The kind of freedom of the seas upon which it is
really vital to count is freedom from murder. Inter
national law at present condemns exactly the kind of
murder which Germany practiced in the case of the
Lusitania and in hundreds of other cases, and is still
practicing. We ought to make her atone heavily for
such conduct and explicitly renounce it before we
ever discuss any other kind of freedom of the seas.

Again, we ought to know just what the President
means by freedom of commercial intercourse. If he
means that he proposes to allow Germany to dump
her manufactures on us without restriction, we ought
to be against it. We ought to insist on keeping in our
hands the complete right to handle our tariff as the
vital interests of our own citizens, and especially our
own working-men, demand.

Again, what is meant by the league of nations?
If it means that Germany, Austria, Turkey, and
Russia, as at present constituted, are to have the
say-so about America's future destiny, we ought to
be against it. They would treat any agreement with
us as a scrap of paper wherever it suited their inter
ests, and we ought to realize this fact. Moreover, we
already belong to a de facto league of nations which
is a going concern. Let us stand by our allies before

228 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

entering into a league with our enemies. Therefore,
let us at once declare war on Turkey. Any such
league is of value only if all its members are willing
to make war on the same offenders, and the culpable
failure of our Government to make war on Turkey
and Bulgaria makes it absurd and hypocritical for us
to promise to enter such a league in the future until
this failure is confessed and atoned for. And let us
at once send Major-General Wood and fifty thou
sand men to aid the Czecho-Slovaks in Siberia and
establish our front well to the west of the Ural
Mountains.

Again, the talk of merely giving autonomy to the
subject races of Austria amounts to betrayal of the
Czecho-Slovaks, the Jugo-Slavs, the Italians, and
the Rumanians. The first should be given their in
dependence and the other three united to the nations
with which they really belong. Moreover, it is a
betrayal of civilization to leave the Turk in Europe
and fail to free the Armenians and the other subject
races of Turkey.

Again, let us define what is meant by abolishing
secret diplomacy. If it means that the Administra
tion is to renounce the system of secret and furtive
diplomacy which it now perseveres in concerning
what has happened in Mexico, Haiti, and San
Domingo, I heartily agree; but I do not see why it
needs an international mandate before it tells our
people the truth in these matters. Moreover, before
it undertakes a fresh agreement, let it explain why
for two years it kept secret from our people the full

PERMANENT PREPAREDNESS 229

knowledge it had of Germany's conduct and attitude
toward us, including all the matters set forth in
Ambassador Gerard's books. The American Nation
has never seen such secret diplomacy practiced by
its Government as it has seen during the last five
years.

It is evident, before these fourteen points are ac
cepted as the basis for peace discussion, they should
be stated in such straightforward language that we
may understand what they mean. The prime neces
sities at present are simplicity of language and the
squaring of deeds with words. The thing we do not
need is adroit and supple rhetoric which can be in
terpreted to mean anything or nothing.

PERMANENT PREPAREDNESS AND
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS,

OCTOBER 15, 1918

THE vital military need of this country as regards its
future international relations is the immediate adop
tion of the policy of permanent preparedness based
on universal training. This is its prime duty from
the standpoint of American nationalism and patriot
ism. Then, as an addition or supplement to, but
under no conditions as substitute for, the policy of
permanent preparedness, we can afford cautiously
to enter into and try out the policy of a league of
nations. There is no difficulty whatever in prattling
cheerfully about such a league or in winning applause

230 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

by rhetoric concerning it prior to the effort to make
it work in practice; but there will be much difficulty
in making it work at all when any serious strain
comes, and it will prove entirely unworkable if the
effort is made to unload upon it, in the name of inter
nationalism, duties which in the present state of the
world will be efficiently performed by the free na
tions only if they perform them as national duties.

In a recent adverse, but courteous and friendly
article on my attitude in this matter which appeared
in a great daily paper, the following language was
used: ' The colonel is letting himself be bothered,
irritated, and sidetracked by fools. There is no way
of preventing a fool from saying that he is in favor of
the league of nations. The American people will be
making up their minds about the league of nations
and about permanent preparedness. They will be
told by certain sorts of pacifists that if they accept
the league they can safely reject preparedness. They
will be told that the two ideas are opposites."

The " certain sort of pacifist " who has made this
statement to the people of the United States is the
President of the United States in the now famous
" fourteen points " which he enunciated last Janu
ary. He advocated as one part of his plan the league
or association of nations, as he has elsewhere advo
cated it, and he advocated as another part of his
plan " the guarantees that national armaments will
be reduced to the lowest point consistent with do
mestic safety." Unless this language was used with
intent to deceive, domestic safety must mean merely

HIGH-SOUNDING PHRASES 231

freedom from riot, and the President's proposal is
that America's national preparedness be limited to
a police force to prevent domestic disorder. There
fore, the President has told the American people
that if they accept the league they can safely reject
preparedness.

The President may change his mind, and I sin
cerely hope he will do so. Until he does so it is the
duty of every sincere American patriot to lay far
more emphasis on the onerous and indispensable
duty of national preparedness than on the wholly
untested scheme of a league of nations, which the
President has presented as an alternative. I heartily
favor true internationalism as an addition to, but
never as substitute for, a fervid and intensely patri
otic nationalism. I will gladly back any wise and
honest effort to create a league of nations, but only
on condition that it is treated as an addition to, and
not as a substitute for, the full preparedness of our
own strength for our own defense.

HIGH-SOUNDING PHRASES OF
MUDDY MEANING

OCTOBER 17, 1918

A KEEN observer of what is now happening in the
world writes me that there is very grave danger that
this country will be cheated out of the right kind of
peace if our people remain fatuously content to
accept high-sounding phrases of muddy meaning,

232 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

instead of clear-cut and truthful statements of just
what we demand and just what we intend to do.

The recent action of President Wilson in connec
tion with Germany has shown the imperative need
of our people informing themselves of his announced
purpose and keeping track of what he does toward
the achievement of this purpose. Therefore, we
should insist upon the purpose being stated in under
standable fashion and being adhered to after it has
been stated. This is n't the President's war. It is
the people's war. The peace will not be a satis
factory peace unless it is the people's peace. As a
people we have no right to permit the President to
commit us to that of which we do not approve or
to that which, after honest effort, we are unable to
understand.

President Wilson's first communication to the
German Government, if words mean anything,
meant an effort to treat on the basis of his so-called
" fourteen points." The German Government an
swered that it accepted these fourteen points and
approved of them. This made them public property,
and it behooves the Americans to examine them. I
believe that such an examination will show the
American people that their meaning is so muddy
that we should insist upon their being clearly defined
before we in any way accept them as ours. When the
peace terms come to be reduced to action, we cannot
afford to accept empty competitive rhetoric for
straightforward plain dealing.

As regards some of the points, either the meaning

HIGH-SOUNDING PHRASES 233

is so muddy as to be wholly incomprehensible or else
the proposals are very treacherous. The fourth
article, for example, proposes guarantees for the
reduction of national armaments to the lowest point
consistent with domestic safety. If this article
means anything, it means that this Nation, for
instance, is only to keep whatever armed forces are
necessary to police the country in the event of
domestic disturbance. Now, let our people face
what this really implies. It is a proposal that we
give up our navy, which, of course, cannot be used
for such police purposes, and that we give up all of
our army that could be used against a foreign foe.
And according to point fourteen of his address to
Congress of January 8 last, and according to point
three in his speech of September 27 last, this lack of
armament on our part is to be supplied by mutual
guarantees of political independence and territorial
integrity within the league of nations covering the
world.

Now, such guarantees are precisely and exactly
the scraps of paper to which the German Chancellor
likened them when his Government tore up those
affecting Belgium. The proposal of President Wilson
is that this country shall put itself in the position of
Belgium; shall trust to guarantees precisely such as
those to which Belgium trusted four and one quarter
years ago, and he also proposes, as far as his meaning
can be made out at all, that the very powers that
treated these guarantees as scraps of paper in the
case of Belgium shall be among the powers to whose

234 > ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

guarantee we are to trust to the exclusion of all
preparation for our own self-defense. All nations are
to be asked to render themselves helpless with fatu
ous indifference to the obvious fact that every weak-
minded nation which accepted and acted in the
proposal would be at the mercy of every ruthless and
efficient nation that chose to treat the proposal as a
scrap of paper.

I gravely doubt whether a more silly or more
mischievous plan was ever seriously proposed by the
ruler of a great nation. Yet, this is exactly the plan
to which President Wilson, by his correspondence
with Germany, has sought definitely to commit the
United States. If his words do not mean exactly
what is above set forth, then their meaning is so
muddy that no two disinterested outsiders would be
warranted in interpreting them the same way.

There is small cause for wonder that Germany
eagerly accepted and made her own President
Wilson's fourteen points to which he, without any
warrant whatever, seemed to commit this Nation.
Incidentally I may add that Mr. Wilson has at
different times enunciated at least as many other
points, some of them contradictory to the fourteen
which he enumerated in January last. The outburst
of popular indignation led by such men as Senators
Lodge, Poindexter, and Thomas, which forced him
to repudiate the negotiations which he had begun
with Germany, should be supplemented by a resolute
insistence upon the duty of the American public to
inform itself as to what it wishes in the peace before

HIGH-SOUNDING PHRASES 235

the President, without authority, commits it to any
peace proposal, and above all to peace proposals
which may mean anything or nothing.

Secretary McAdoo, with fine family loyalty, an
nounced that the acceptance by Germany of the
fourteen points would have meant Germany's un
conditional surrender. He might as well have said
that the acceptance of disunion and the perpetuation
of slavery in 1864 would have meant a surrender by
the Confederate states. Not only Germany, but
every pacifist and pro-German here at home, hailed
the fourteen points as representing what they de
sired. I recently spoke to a body of loyal Americans
of German descent on behalf of the Liberty Loan. A
member of their organization who was not a straight
American, but a hyphenated American, and who did
not venture to do more than sign himself as " Ger
man-American," wrote me that in view of my re
pudiation of President Wilson's so-called fourteen
points he could not, as a loyal German-American, do
otherwise than condemn me. The individual him
self is doubtless as unimportant as the anonymous
letter writer usually is, but there is a real significance
in his endorsement of President Wilson's fourteen
points in view of his calling himself so emphatically
not a straight-out American, but a German-Ameri
can. Evidently his loyalty is to Germanism and not
to Americanism, and this German loyalty of his
made him back the President's fourteen points,
which Germany had so gladly accepted.

The American people should insist that these four-

236 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

teen points and any other points are stated in clear-
cut language, and that there be a full understanding
of just what is meant by them and a full knowledge
of how far the American people approve of them
before any foreign power is permitted to think that
they represent America's position at the peace
council.

AN AMERICAN PEACE VERSUS

A RUBBER-STAMP PEACE

OCTOBER 22, 1918

IN Wallace's Farmer, a journal devoted to the inter
ests of the farmer, and also to the interests of every
good American citizen, but which has no concern
with partisan politics, there is a strong editorial
against our acceptance of a peace on the terms of the
famous fourteen points laid down by President
Wilson in his message of January last. It reads in
part as follows:

Of course, Germany would like to make peace on the terms
laid down by President Wilson in his speech of January 8, for
it would allow Germany to escape the just penalty of her
crimes and restore her to her condition before the war.

On the other hand, the leading Socialist paper of
New York enthusiastically champions the fourteen
points, especially those demanding a league of na
tions, freedom of the seas according to the German
party, and the removal of all economic barriers.
This championship is natural, for the Socialists, like

AN AMERICAN PEACE 237

the I.W.W. of this country, who have been bitterly
pro-German and anti-American, and like the worst
Russian Bolsheviks, have steadily worked in Ger
many's interests; and like all its professional inter
nationalists they hate the liberty-loving nations so
bitterly that they are eagerly working for peace satis
factory to the German autocracy. All such persons,
so far as they are not merely silly, seek their own
profit in the destruction of civilization, and they
would hail an inconclusive peace, which would mean
the triumph of militarism, rather than see the free
nations triumphant over both militarism and anarchy.
But in his last note to Austria, President Wilson
himself flatly repudiates one of his fourteen points —
that relating to autonomy for the Czecho-Slovaks
and Jugo-Slavs under the Austro-Hungarian yoke.
He announces that he has changed his position
because facts have changed, but in reality the facts
have not changed in even the smallest degree be
tween January and October so far as these two
nationalities are concerned. Many persons, includ
ing myself, had then been demanding for over a year
this complete independence. Nothing whatever has
changed in the situation except Mr. Wilson's mind,
and obviously this has changed merely because the
American people have gradually waked up and have
forced him in this matter to take a course diamet
rically opposed to the one he had been advocating,
precisely as a week ago an aroused and indignant
public opinion forced him to absolutely reverse the
course of negotiation on which he entered with Ger-

238 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

many. The popular feeling would have been inartic
ulate and helpless if it had not received expression
from various patriotic public servants and private
citizens and from those fearless newspapers, which,
at the risk of grave financial disaster, have ventured
when the crisis was serious to defy the sinister efforts
of the Administration to do away with the free
dom of the press. Senators Lodge, Poindexter, and
Thomas and Congressman Fess are examples of the
public servants, and Professor Hobbs, of the Uni
versity of Michigan, and Professor Thayer, of Har
vard, are examples of private citizens who have
well served the people of the United States in this
crisis.

Of course, the entire cuckoo or rubber-stamp tribe
of politicians tumbled over themselves in the effort
to assure the President that no matter what somer
sault he turned they would flop with equal quickness,
and that their responsibility was solely to him and
not to the people of the United States or to the cause
of right and of fearlessness and of honorable dealing.
Senator Lewis, of Illinois, introduced a resolution
stating that " the United States Senate approves
whatever course may be taken by the President in
dealing with the German Imperial Government and
the Austrian Imperial Government and endorses
and approves whatever methods he may employ."
Senator Lewis is, in private life, an amiable and
kindly gentleman, but the above resolution is a
somewhat abject announcement that in public life he
aspires only to be a rubber stamp. If such position is

UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER 239

proper, then there is no need of Senators or Congress
men, and our people should merely send written
proxies to Washington and should otherwise copy
the example of those big private corporations which
are controlled by one man according to his own will
and for his own benefit.

I do not believe that the American people will
accept a view which is both so abject and so pro
foundly unpatriotic. This is the war of the American
people and the peace which concludes it should be
the peace imposed by the American people. There
fore, they should send to Washington public servants
who will be self-respecting Americans and not rubber
stamps.

UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER

OCTOBER 26, 1918

WHEN the American people speak for unconditional
surrender, it means that Germany must accept what
ever terms the United States and its allies think
necessary in order to right the dreadful wrongs that
have been committed and to safeguard the world for
at least a generation to come from another attempt
by Germany to secure world dominion. Uncondi
tional surrender is the reverse of a negotiated peace.
The interchange of notes, which has been going on
between our Government and the Governments of
Germany and Austria during the last three weeks,
means, of course, if persisted in, a negotiated peace.

240 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

It is the abandonment of force and the substitution
of negotiation. This fact should be clearly and truth
fully stated by our leaders, so that the American
people may decide with their eyes open which course
they will follow.

Those of us who believe in unconditional surrender
regard Germany's behavior during the last five years
as having made her the outlaw among nations. In
private life sensible men and women do not negotiate
with an outlaw or grow sentimental about him, or
ask for a peace with him on terms of equality if he
will give up his booty. Still less do they propose to
make a league with him for the future, and on the
strength of this league to abolish the sheriff and take
the constable. On the contrary, they expect the law
officers to take him by force and to have him tried
and punished. They do not punish him out of re
venge, but because all intelligent persons know
punishment to be necessary in order to stop certain
kinds of criminals from wrongdoing and to save the
community from such wrongdoing.

We ought to treat Germany in precisely this
manner. It is a sad and dreadful thing to have to
face some months or a year or so of additional blood
shed, but it is a much worse thing to quit now and
have the children now growing up obliged to do the
job all over again, with ten times as much bloodshed
and suffering, when their turn comes. The surest
way to secure a peace as lasting as that which
followed the downfall of Napoleon is to overthrow
the Prussianized Germany of the Hohenzollerns as

WHAT ARE THE FOURTEEN POINTS? 241

Napoleon was overthrown. If we enter into a league
of peace with Germany and her vassal allies, we must
expect them to treat the arrangement as a scrap of
paper whenever it becomes to their interest to do so.

WHAT ARE THE FOURTEEN POINTS?

OCTOBER 30, 1918

THE European nations have been told that the
fourteen points enumerated in President Wilson's
message of January last are to be the basis of peace.
It is, therefore, possible that Americans may like to
know what they are. It is even possible that they
may like to guess what they mean, although I am
not certain that such guessing is permitted by the
Postmaster-General and the Attorney-General under
the new theory of making democracy safe for all
kinds of peoples abroad who have never heard of it
by interpreting democracy at home as meaning that
it is unlawful for the people to express any except
favorable opinions of the way in which the public
servants of the people transact the public business.
The first point forbids " all private international
understandings of any kind," and says there must be
" open covenants of peace, openly arrived at," and
announces that " diplomacy shall always proceed
frankly in the public view." The President has re
cently waged war on Haiti and San Domingo and
rendered democracy within these two small former
republics not merely unsafe, but non-existent. He

242 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

has kept all that he has done in the matter absolutely
secret. If he means what he says, he will at once an
nounce what open covenant of peace he has openly
arrived at with these two little republics, which he
has deprived of their right of self-determination. He
will also announce what public international under
standing, if any, he now has with these two republics,
whose soil he is at present occupying with the armed
forces of the United States and hundreds of whose
citizens have been killed by these armed forces. If
he has no such public understanding, he will tell us
why, and whether he has any private international
understanding, or whether he invaded and con
quered them and deprived them of the right of self-
determination without any attempt to reach any
understanding, either private or public.

Moreover, he has just sent abroad on a diplomatic
mission Mr. House, of Texas. Mr. House is not
in the public service of the Nation, but he is in
the private service of Mr. Wilson. He is usually
called Colonel House. In his official or semi-official
biography, published in an ardently admiring New
York paper, it is explained that he was once ap
pointed colonel on a governor's staff, but carried his
dislike of military ostentation to the point of giving
his uniform to a negro servant to wear on social
occasions. This attitude of respect for the uniform
makes the President feel that he is peculiarly fit to
negotiate on behalf of our fighting men abroad for
whom the uniform is sacred. Associated with him is
an editor of the New York World, which paper has

THE FOURTEEN POINTS 243

recently been busy in denouncing as foolish the
demand made by so many Americans for uncondi
tional surrender by Germany.

I do not doubt that these two gentlemen possess
charming social attributes and much private worth,
but as they are sent over on a diplomatic mission,
presumably vitally affecting the whole country, and
as their instructions and purposes are shrouded in
profound mystery, it seems permissible to ask Presi
dent Wilson why in this particular instance diplo
macy does not " proceed frankly in the public
view " ?

This first one of the fourteen points offers such an
illuminating opportunity to test promise as to the
future by performance in the present that I have
considered it at some length. The other thirteen
points and the subsequent points laid down as
further requirements for peace I shall briefly take up
in another article.

FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF THE
FOURTEEN POINTS

OCTOBER 30, 1918

THE second in the fourteen points deals with freedom
of the seas. It makes no distinction between freeing
the seas from murder like that continually practiced
by Germany and freeing them from blockade of
contraband merchandise, which is the practice of a
right universally enjoyed by belligerents, and at this

244 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

moment practiced by the United States. Either this
proposal is meaningless or it is a mischievous con
cession to Germany.

The third point promises free trade among all the
nations, unless the words are designedly used to
conceal President Wilson's true meaning. This
would deny to our country the right to make a tariff
to protect its citizens, and especially its working-
men, against Germany or China or any other
country. Apparently this is desired on the ground
that the incidental domestic disaster to this country
will prevent other countries from feeling hostile to
us. The supposition is foolish. England practiced
free trade and yet Germany hated England particu
larly, and Turkey practiced free trade without
deserving or obtaining friendship from any one
except those who desired to exploit her.

The fourth point provides that this Nation, like
every other, is to reduce its armaments to the lowest
limit consistent with domestic safety. Either this is
language deliberately used to deceive or else it means
that we are to scrap our army and navy and prevent
riot by means of a national constabulary, like the
state^ constabulary of New York or Pennsylvania.

Point five proposes that colonial claims shall all be
treated on the same basis. Unless the language is
deliberately used to deceive, this means that we are
to restore to our brutal enemy the colonies taken by
our allies while they were defending us from this
enemy. The proposition is probably meaningless. If
it is not, it is monstrous.

THE FOURTEEN POINTS 245

Point six deals with Russia. It probably means
nothing, but if it means anything, it provides that
America shall share on equal terms with other na
tions, including Germany, Austria, and Turkey, in
giving Russia assistance. The whole proposition
would not be particularly out of place in a college
sophomore's exercise in rhetoric.

Point seven deals with Belgium and is entirely
proper and commonplace.

Point eight deals with Alsace-Lorraine and is
couched in language which betrays Mr. Wilson's
besetting sin — his inability to speak in a straight
forward manner. He may mean that Alsace and
Lorraine must be restored to France, in which case
he is right. He may mean that a plebiscite must be
held, in wrhich case he is playing Germany's evil
game.

Point nine deals with Italy, and is right.

Point ten deals with the Austro-Hungarian Em
pire, and is so foolish that even President Wilson has
since abandoned it.

Point eleven proposes that we, together with other
nations, including apparently Germany, Austria,
and Hungary, shall guarantee justice in the Balkan
Peninsula. As this would also guarantee our being
from time to time engaged in war over matters in
which we had no interest whatever, it is worth while
inquiring whether President Wilson proposes that we
wage these wars with the national constabulary to
which he desired to reduce our armed forces.

Point twelve proposes to perpetuate the infamy of

246 ; ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

Turkish rule in Europe, and as a sop to the con
science of humanity proposes to give the subject
races autonomy, a slippery word which in a case like
this is useful only for rhetorical purposes.

Point thirteen proposes an independent Poland,
which is right; and then proposes that we guarantee
its integrity in the event of future war, which is
preposterous unless we intend to become a military
nation more fit for overseas warfare than Germany
is at present.

Point fourteen proposes a general association of
nations to guarantee to great and small states alike
political independence and territorial integrity. It
is dishonorable to make this proposition so long as
President Wilson continues to act as he is now acting
in Haiti and San Domingo. In its essence Mr.
Wilson's proposition for a league of nations seems to
be akin to the holy alliance of the nations of Europe
a century ago, which worked such mischief that the
Monroe Doctrine was called into being especially to
combat it. If it is designed to do away with nation
alism, it will work nothing but mischief. If it is
devised in sane fashion as an addition to nationalism
and as an addition to preparing our own strength for
our own defense, it may do a small amount of good ;
but it will certainly accomplish nothing if more than
a moderate amount is attempted and probably the
best first step would be to make the existing league
of the Allies a going concern.

As to the supplementary points or proposals, the
four advanced or laid down in February were sound

THE FOURTEEN POINTS 247

moral aphorisms of no value save as they may be
defined in each particular case.

But the supplementary five proposals set forth by
President Wilson last September were, on the whole,
mischievous and were capable of a construction that
would make them ruinous in their essence. They set
forth the doctrine that there must be no discrimina
tion between our friends and our enemies and no
special economic or political alliances among friendly
nations, but uniform treatment of all the league of
nations; the said league, therefore, to include Ger
many, Austria, Turkey, and Russia upon a footing of
equality of our allies. Either the words used mean
nothing or they mean that we are to enter a league
in which we make-believe that our deadly enemies,
stained with every kind of brutality and treachery,
are as worthy of friendship as the Allies who have
fought our battles for four years. No wonder that
the proposal is enthusiastically applauded by Ger
many, Austria, and Turkey and by all our own pro-
Germans and pacifists and Germanized Socialists
and anti- American internationalists. It is the kind
of proposition made by cold-blooded men who at
least care nothing for the sufferings of others. It is
eagerly championed by foolish and hysterical senti
mentalists. It is accepted and used for sinister pur
poses by powerful and cynical wrongdoers. When
the President was making this proposition and
during the subsequent month Germany was com
mitting inhuman murders of the people on the
Ticonderoga and Leinster at sea, and on shore was

248 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

committing every species of murder, rape, enslave
ment, plunder, and outrage as her armies withdrew
from France and Belgium.

President Wilson's announcement was a notice to
the malefactors that they would not be punished for
the murders. Let us treat the league of nations only
as an addition to, and not as a substitute for, thor
ough preparedness and intense nationalism on our
part. Let none of the present international criminals
be admitted until a sufficient number of years has
passed to make us sure it has repented. Make con
duct the test of admission to the league. In every
crisis judge each nation by its conduct. Therefore,
at the present time let us stand by our friends and
against our enemies.

FOURTEEN SCRAPS OF PAPER
OCTOBER 31, 1918

IN my article yesterday I discussed Mr. Wilson's
fourteen peace points which had been accepted by
Germany.* After the article was sent in, Mr. Wilson
explained one of the points by stating that it meant
exactly the opposite of what it said. A New York
paper has asked for the election of a Congress that
shall see eye to eye with Mr. Wilson. But only a
Congress of whirling dervishes could see eye to eye
with Mr. Wilson for more than twenty-four hours at
a time.

When Germany broke her treaty with Belgium,

FOURTEEN SCRAPS OF PAPER 249

the German Chancellor called it a scrap of paper.
Any individual who proposes a treaty which plainly
means one thing, and then, as soon as he finds it dis
agreeable to adhere to that obvious meaning, in
stantly interprets it as meaning exactly the opposite,
is treating it as a scrap of paper. Mr. Wilson's recent
interpretation of what he meant in the point about
economic barriers makes all the fourteen points
scraps of paper unworthy of serious discussion by
anybody, because no human being is supposed to say
what any one of them means or to do more than
guess whether to-morrow Mr. Wilson will not in
terpret each and all of them in a sense exactly the
opposite to their meaning.

Mr. Wilson's language in the point in question
was that he intended the removal " of all economic
barriers and the establishment of an equality of
trade conditions among all the nations." By no
honest construction of language can this be held to
mean anything except that this Nation, for example,
could have no tariff of its own, but must live under
exactly the same tariff, or no tariff, conditions with
all other nations. But Mr. Wilson now notifies a
Democratic Senator that he did not mean any " re
striction upon the free determination by any nation
of its own economic policy." If he meant this, why
did he not say it? Why did he say the exact oppo
site? His first statement is wholly incompatible
with the interpretation he now puts on it. If any
body in private life entered into a contract in such
manner and then sought to repudiate it by interpret-

250 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

ing it in such manner, there is not a court in Chris
tendom that would not adjudge him guilty of having
used language with deliberate intent to deceive.

Nor is this all. In his new interpretation of what
he did not originally mean, the President now says
that he proposes to prevent any nation, including the
United States, from using its tariff to discriminate in
favor of friendly nations and against hostile nations.
This is what he now says and what he now means,
but, of course, to-morrow he may say that in this
new interpretation he again meant exactly the oppo
site of what he says. However this may be for the
future, President Wilson at this moment says, for
instance, we ought to abandon reciprocity treaties;
that we ought to refuse to make such treaties with
our friends, such as Cuba and Brazil, and ought to
punish these friends by treating them on an exact
equality with our embittered and malevolent enemy,
Germany. LI hold this to be thoroughly mischievous
doctrine.

The great scientist, Huxley, who loved truth and
abhorred falsehood, said that " the primary condi
tion of honest literature is to leave the reader in no
doubt as to the author's meaning." Evidently this
primary condition is not fulfilled by Mr. Wilson's
fourteen points. They should now be treated as
scraps of paper and put where they belong, in the
scrap-basket.

THE TURKS SURRENDER 251

THE TURKS SURRENDER
UNCONDITIONALLY

NOVEMBER 3, 1918

THE British have beaten Turkey to her knees and
she has surrendered unconditionally. America has
no share in the honor of what has been done. Presi
dent Wilson, although we were at war with Ger
many, has refused to aid our allies against Turkey
and has preserved the same cold neutrality between
the Armenians and their Turkish butchers that he
formerly did between the Belgians and their German
oppressors.

Turkey had inflicted inhuman wrongs on the
subject peoples and had infringed our own treaty
rights, but President Wilson refused to go to war
with her. Yet with our navy at the very outbreak
of hostilities and then with a considerable and con
stantly growing army, if we had been willing we
could have materially aided the British and French.
In such event Constantinople would doubtless have
been taken long ago. As it is, thanks to President
Wilson, we Americans can only look on and rejoice
that others did better than our rulers let us do. We
have had no hand in the freeing of Palestine, Syria,
and Armenia. Under the great law of service and
sacrifice it is the British and French alone who have
the moral right to determine the fate of Turkey.
They, and especially the British, have poured out
their blood freely, and now, after the victory has

252 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

been gained, expenditure of ink on our part is of
mighty small consequence in comparison. I ear
nestly hope that permanent justice will be done by
expelling the Turk from Europe and making all
Armenia independent. But we have lost the right to
insist on these points.

The beginning of the end came when, two or three
weeks ago, Bulgaria was forced to surrender
unconditionally. Here again, thanks to President
Wilson, America had no part in the honor and credit
of the vital triumph. Our Government was still
neutral about Bulgaria, still too proud to fight either
Turkey or Bulgaria, still hoping for peace without
victory over them.

Now Turkey has surrendered and Austria has
broken up. In the case of Austria, after ten months*
unpardonable delay, we did finally go to war, and we
have a very small share in the great glory won by
Italy and the other Allies.

The greatest contest was on the western front, and
here the hundreds of thousands of American troops
engaged under Foch and Pershing have shown such
extraordinary gallantry and efficiency that we are all
forever their debtors. Nearly a month ago President
Wilson entered into negotiations with Germany
which, if continued along the line he started, might
have caused disaster. Fortunately there was such an
outburst of protest in the country that our allies took
part and President Wilson himself took warning.
President Wilson may still serve as a channel of
Communication. But General Foch will be the real

PEACE 253

master of the situation. The men with guns and not
the men with fountain pens will dictate the terms.

PEACE

NOVEMBER 12, 1918

FOUR years and a quarter have passed since Ger
many, by the invasion of Belgium, began the World
War and made it at the same time a war of cynical
treachery and of bestiality and of inhuman wrong
doing. Almost from the beginning our governmental
authorities were well informed of the organized
brutality with which it was waged and of the fact
that the Kaiser and the leading soldiers, politicians,
and commercial magnates of Germany had deliber
ately plunged the world into war because they ex
pected to profit by conquest, while the Socialist
Party aided and abetted them in the hope of sharing
some of the profit.

The rest of us ordinary Americans were success
fully hoodwinked because the facts were concealed
from us. But gradually the truth leaked through to
us. First we learned that the stories of the atrocities
were true. Then, although not until much later, we
found out that there was ample proof that Germany
had brought on the war to gratify her greed for gold
and her arrogant and conscienceless lust for world
domination. Finally we were permitted to learn that
Germany intended to strike us down as soon as she
had made the free nations her victims. Now our

254 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

troops have played a manful part, a part not only
heroic and efficient, but also of decisive consequence
in the final terrible struggle.

It is not pleasant to think that the two first
crushing blows in bringing about the end, the over
throw of Bulgaria and the overthrow of Turkey,
were due in no way to us, but solely to our allies,
England and France. We never made war on either
offending nation; we remained neutral, and this ex
hibition of feeble diplomacy on our part made us
onlookers instead of partakers of the triumph. But
with Austria, after much hesitation and wabbling,
we did finally go to war, and, although our part was
very small, we have a modest right to share the
general satisfaction over the victory. In the case of
Germany, however, we played a really great part,
and although until the very end we were unable to
put on the fighting line any tanks or field guns or
battle planes, and relatively only a small number of
machine guns and bombing and observation planes,
our soldiers themselves were probably on the average
the finest troops who fought in Europe.

And now the German imperial military and cap
italistic authority has been beaten to its knees and
forced to accept all the terms the Allies have imposed
upon it. The able and wicked men who thought to
wade through a sea of blood to world domination
must now bow their heads before the outside peoples
whom they have so cruelly wronged and face the
sullen distrust and hostility of their own people,
whom they misled by promising them a share in the

SACRIFICE ON COLD ALTARS 255

profits of successful guilt. Their doom has come
upon them.

A little over a month ago the Administration em
barked upon a career of note-writing with Germany,
which, if unchecked, might have meant a peace of
practical profit to Germany. But the feeling of the
American people, especially in the West, showed it
self in such direct and straightforward fashion that
this effort was soon abandoned. Moreover, at the
recent election, the American people, with the issue
squarely before them, declared that they were the
masters of their public servants and not rubber
stamps, and that this was the people's war and not
the war of any one man or any one party, and that
loyalty to ourselves and our allies stood ahead of ad
herence to any man. Germany has been beaten
down abroad and at home. The pro-Germans and
the pacifists and the defeatists and the Germanized
Socialists, and all the crew who stand for any form
of either Bolshevism or Kaiserism, have been warned
that they shall not betray this Nation.

SACRIFICE ON COLD ALTARS

NOVEMBER 13, 1918

A FRIEND, a California woman, writes me that there
is staying with her a widow whose only son has been
in the navy and has just died of influenza, and that
the mother said:

I gave my boy proudly to my country. I never held him
back, even in my heart. But if only he had died with a gun

256 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

in his hand — a little glory for him and a thought for me that
my sacrifice had not been useless.

My correspondent continues:

There must be so many mothers who feel that they have
laid their sacrifice on cold altars. You have written much
that will comfort the mothers whose sons have paid with
their bodies in battle. Is n't there something you can say to
help these other mothers?

I felt a real pang when I received this letter, be
cause the thought suggested had been in my mind,
and yet I had failed to express it. It had happened
that my own sons and nephews and young cousins
and their close friends were where death or wounds
came to them on the field of action. For example, on
the day I received this letter we also got news that
the closest school and college and army friend of my
son, Quentin, who was killed, had himself just been
killed. He was a man who had been promoted for a
series of hazardous and successful battles with Ger
man airmen. He was as gentle and clean and lovable
as a girl, yet terrible in his battle, and no more high
and fearless soul ever fronted death joyously in the
high heavens. My mind had, because of facts like
this, turned toward the deaths of the men on the
firing line; and I regret that I did not make it evi
dent as I meant to make it, and but for this over
sight would have made it, that all who have given
their lives or the lives dearest to them in this war
stand on an exact level of service and sacrifice and
honor and glory.

The men who have died of pneumonia or fever in

SACRIFICE ON COLD ALTARS 257

the hospitals, the men who have been killed in acci
dents on the airplane training fields are as much
heroes as those who were killed at the front, and
their shining souls shall hereafter light up all to a
clearer and greater view of the duties of life. The
war is over now. The time of frightful losses among
the men at the front and of heartbreaking anxiety
for their mothers and wives, their sisters and sweet
hearts at home has passed. No great triumph is ever
won save by the payment of the necessary cost. All
of us who have stayed at home and all the others who
have returned safe will, as long as life shall last,
think of the men who died as having purchased for
us and for our children's children, as long as this
country shall last, a heritage so precious that even
their precious blood was not too great a price to pay.
Whether they fell in battle or how they died matters
not at all, and it matters not what they were doing
as long as, high of soul, they were doing their duty
with all the strength and fervor of their natures.
The mother or the wife whose son or husband has
died, whether in battle or by fever or in the accident
inevitable in hurriedly preparing a modern army for
war, must never feel that the sacrifice has been laid
" on a cold altar." There is no gradation of honor
among these gallant men and no essential gradation
of service. They all died that we might live; our
debt is to all of them, and we can pay it even person
ally only by striving so to live as to bring a little
nearer the day when justice and mercy shall rule in
our own homes and among the nations of the world.

258 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

THE RED FLAG AND THE HUN
PEACE DRIVE
NOVEMBER 14, 1918

THE war is won. A twofold duty is now incumbent
on us. We must strive to make the peace one of
justice and righteousness and to throw out such safe
guards around it as will give us the greatest possi
ble chance of permanency. Then we must turn to
setting aright the affairs of our own household.
But before we set ourselves to the performance of
these two tasks we should thoroughly enlighten
our enemies at home and abroad on one or two
points.

Let all anti-Americans stand aside. Let them
understand that we are not merely against some
enemies of the country — we are against all enemies
of the country. This week in New York there was a
red flag of Anarchy or Socialistic meeting which was
the cause of a riot. It was perfectly natural that it
should be the cause of a riot. The red flag is as much
an enemy as the flag of the Hohenzollerns. The
internationalist of the red flag or black flag type is an
enemy to this Nation just exactly as much as Hin-
denburg or Ludendorff was an enemy only a week
ago. He is an even more treacherous enemy and
equally brutal. Congress should pass a law without
waiting a day prohibiting the use of the red flag or
the black flag or any other flag of the kind here in
America. We have universal suffrage in America.

THE RED FLAG 259

The majority of our people can have what they
wish in the way of industrial and political change, if
they seriously desire it. There is n't any excuse in
this country for any paltering with revolutionary
movements. A riot is riot, without reference to
what the people rioting claim to be for. When a mob
gets started, it always acts the same way, no matter
what the theoretical cause of the outbreak may have
been. A Bolshevist mob in New York in all essen
tials resembles the anti-draft mob of 1863, although
the arguments of the parlor Bolsheviki of to-day
would be totally different from those of the consti
tutional copperheads of fifty-five years ago.

When the Romanoffs were overthrown the Rus
sian people lacked self-control and they permitted
the dominion of a Bolshevist gang, which has
brought wholesale robbery, murder, and starvation
in its trail. The overthrow of the Hohenzollerns in
Germany has been accompanied by Bolshevist up
rising in that country also. There is some excuse for
excesses in a revolution against a despotism, but in
this country there is no more excuse for Bolshevism
in any form than there is for despotism itself. Any
foreign-born man who parades with or backs up a
red flag or black flag organization ought to be in
stantly deported to the country from which he came.
Appropriate punishment should be devised for the
even more guilty native-born.

Our National Government should take the most
vigorous action and have it understood that Amer
ica is a bulwark of order no less than of liberty.

26o ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

We must make it evident that we will stamp out
Bolshevism within our borders just as quickly as
Kaiserism.

Moreover, let us realize the nonsense of the pre
tense that the German people have not been behind
the German Government. They were behind their
Government with hearty enthusiasm until the Gov
ernment was smashed by the military powers of
General Foch. The effort now being made by the
German Government to bring dissensions between
the Allies by appealing to the United States against
the Allies proper should be spurned by our Govern
ment. The French, English, Italians, and Belgians
have been fighting side by side with our men under
Foch. They have acted as comrades under Foch, and
we could not have done anything if we had not acted
as comrades like the rest. Now let 's play the game
when the effort is made to divide us by the German
peace drive.

Senator Poindexter was entirely right in his pro
posed bill. The United States must make absolutely
common cause writh the Allies. We regret that the
German and Russian people should suffer; the fault
lies solely with the past or present governments. To
the very minute of the closing of the war the hideous
German brutalities continued unabated, and ap
parently the Turks are still slaughtering Armenians.
We will do our best to help even our enemies now
that they have been stricken down, but we will not
do so at the cost of doing injustice to our friends.
We will not permit Hun hypocrisy to succeed where

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 261

Hun violence has failed. And we are equally un
compromising foes of Bolshevism and Kaiserism at
home and abroad.

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
NOVEMBER 17, 1918

THERE are so many prior things to do and so much
uncertainty as to the form of agreement for perma
nently increasing the chances of peace that it is
difficult to do more than make a general statement as
to what is desirable and possibly feasible in the
league of nations plan. It would certainly be folly
to discuss it overmuch until some of the existing ob
stacles to peace are overcome. That such discussion
may be not futile, but mischievous, has been vividly
shown in the last six weeks. During the first week of
October President Wilson and Germany agreed on
the famous fourteen points of Mr. Wilson's as a basis
for peace. But this agreement amounted to nothing
whatever except for a moment it gave Germany the
hope that she could escape disaster by a negotiated
peace. The emphatic protest of our own people
caused this hope to vanish, and just five weeks later
peace came, not on Mr. Wilson's fourteen points,
but on General Foch's twenty-odd points, which had
all the directness, the straightforwardness, and the
unequivocal clearness which the fourteen points
strikingly lacked.

Nevertheless, it is well to begin considering now

262 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

the things which we think can be done and the things
that we think cannot be done in making a league of
nations. In the first place, we ought to realize that
the population of the world clearly understands that
in this war they have been involved to a degree
never hitherto known. In consequence the horror
of the war is very real, and people are at least think
ing of the need of cooperation with much greater
fixity of purpose and of understanding than ever
before. Of course, fundamentally war and peace
are matters of the heart rather than of organization,
and any declaration or peace league which represents
the high-flown sentimentality of pacifists and doc
trinaires will be worse than useless; but if, without
in the smallest degree sacrificing our belief in a sound
and intense national aim, we all join with the people
of England, France, and Italy and with the people in
smaller states who in practice show themselves able
to steer equally clear of Bolshevism and of Kaiser-
ism, we may be able to make a real and much-needed
advance in the international organization. The
United States cannot again completely withdraw
into its shell. We need not mix in all European
quarrels nor assume all spheres of interest every
where to be ours, but we ought to join with the other
civilized nations of the world in some scheme that
in a time of great stress would offer a likelihood of
obtaining just settlements that will avert war.

Therefore, in my judgment, the United States at
the peace conference ought to be able to cooperate
effectively with the British and French and Italian

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 263

Governments to support a practical and effective
plan which won't attempt the impossible, but which
will represent a real step forward.

Probably the first essential would be to limit the
league at the outset to the Allies, to the peoples with
whom we have been operating and with whom we are
certain we can cooperate in the future. Neither Tur
key nor Austria need now be considered as regards
such a league, and we should clearly understand that
Bolshevist Russia is, and that Bolshevist Germany
would be, as undesirable in such a league as the Ger
many and Russia of the Hohenzollerns and Roman
offs. Bolshevism is just as much an international
menace as Kaiserism. Until Germany and Russia
have proved by a course of conduct extending over
years that they are capable of entering such a league
in good faith, so that we can count upon their fulfill
ing their duties in it, it would be merely foolish to
take them in.

The league, therefore, would have to be based on
the combination among the Allies of the present war
— together with any peoples like the Czecho-Slo-
vaks, who have shown that they are fully entitled to
enter into such a league if they desire to do so. Each
nation should absolutely reserve to itself its right to
establish its own tariff and general economic policy,
and absolutely ought to control such vital questions
as immigration and citizenship and the form of
government it prefers. Then it would probably be
best for certain spheres of interest to be reserved to
each nation or a group of nations.

264 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

The northernmost portion of South America and
Mexico and Central America, all of them fronting
on the Panama Canal, have a special interest to the
United States, more interest than they can have for
any European or Asiatic power. The general con
duct of Eastern Asiatic policy bears a most close rela
tionship to Japan. The same thing is true as regards
other nations and certain of the peculiarly African
and European questions. Everything outside of
what is thus reserved, which affects any two mem
bers of the league or affects one member of the league
and outsiders, should be decided by some species of
court, and all the people of the league should guar
antee to use their whole strength in enforcing the
decision.

This, of course, means that all the free peoples
must keep reasonably prepared for defense and for
helping well-behaved nations against the nations or
hordes which represent despotism, barbarism, and
anarchy. As far as the United States is concerned, I
believe we should keep our navy to the highest pos
sible point of efficiency and have it second in size to
that of Great Britain alone, and we should then have
universal obligatory military training for all our
young men for a period of, say, nine months during
some one year between the ages of nineteen and
twenty-three inclusive. This would not represent
militarism, but an antidote against militarism. It
would not represent a great expense. On the con
trary, it would mean to give to every citizen of our
country an education which would fit him to do his

AN AMERICAN CONGRESS 265

work as a citizen as no other type of education
could.

There are some nations with which there would
not be the slightest difficulty in going much further
than this. The time has now come when it would be
perfectly safe to enter into universal arbitration
treaties with the British Empire, for example, re
serving such rights only as Australia and Canada
themselves would reserve inside the British Empire;
but there are a number of outside peoples with
whom it would not be safe to go much further than
above outlined. If we only made this one kind of
agreement, we could keep it, and we should make no
agreement that we would not and could not keep.
More essential than anything else is it for us to
remember that in matters of this kind an ounce of
practical performance is worth a ton of windy rhetor
ical promises.

AN AMERICAN CONGRESS
NOVEMBER 18, 1918

THE election of a Republican Congress a fortnight
ago was first and foremost a victory for straight
Americanism. To the Republican Party it repre
sents not so much a victory as an opportunity. To
the American people, including not only Republicans
and independents, but all patriotic Democrats who
put loyalty to the Nation above servility to a polit
ical leader, the victory was primarily won for

266 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

straight-out Americanism. A very important feature
to remember is that this victory was won in the
West. On the whole, the East also showed gains,
but the greatest gains were in the West. The South,
of course, and most unfortunately, never permits its
political or patriotic convictions to alter the result at
the ballot box.

Now the Westerners, the strong, masterful, self-
reliant men who won such exacting victories in Kan
sas, Minnesota, Colorado, Wyoming, and South
Dakota, are just as opposed to what may be called
Kaiserism in our political and industrial life as they
are to Bolshevism. I firmly believe that this is true
of the rank and file of the Republican Party every
where. They have n't the slightest patience with
Townleyism in agricultural districts or I.W.W.-ism
in labor circles. But resolutely they intend to shape
our internal policy for the real substantial benefit of
the average man, of the ninety per cent of our people
who are farmers, working-men, small shopkeepers,
doctors, and the like. They have n't the slightest
patience with the Bolshevist desire to establish
proletariat class tyranny, which is just as odious as
aristocratic class tyranny. They have n't the slight
est patience in persecution of, or failure generously to
reward, the man who by nature or by training is a
leader in industrial matters. They want to see farm
ing, for instance, offer a chance to the man of ability
to become a scientific farmer on a large scale. They
wish to see the young business man whose leadership
in manufactures or commerce is of incalculable

AN AMERICAN CONGRESS 267

worth to everybody receive in generous fashion the
big reward to which he is entitled.

But they wish to do all this as an incident to secur
ing not only this right to, but a much better chance
for, the average man. They wish the tenant farmer
class to be made a diminishing instead of an increas
ing class so that tenant farming itself may not be a
permanent status, but a step toward farm ownership
by the hired man or the son of the small farm owner.
They wish to see the working-man, and especially
the working-man in such huge businesses as those
connected with transportation, steel production,
mining, and the like, become not a mere cog in an
industrial machine, but a man whose self-respect and
reasonable prosperity are guaranteed if the business
succeeds, and he is entitled through representation
on the directory to have his voice heard at the coun
cil board of the business, even although at first and
until the ability to use power is slowly developed by
the habit of using it, the control may have to do
primarily with the things of which he has special
knowledge and in which he has special interest.
Moreover, there are plenty of great natural re
sources, such as water power, where small ownership
cannot provide capital for the development, but
where the outright ownership of the people should
not be disposed of. The happy line must be struck
between the all-pervading straight regimentation,
which would be as deadening as paralysis, and the
regimentation of mere individualism. The Govern
ment must exercise control in a spirit of justice to

268 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

all concerned and with a stern readiness to check in
justice by any of those concerned.

The Republican leadership in Congress has on
the whole been singularly patriotic and singularly
free from the vice of mere partisanship during the
lifetime of the present Congress. We can be certain
that it will continue to be so in the new Congress.
In the future as in the past the President can count
on the hearty and ungrudging support of the Repub
lican Party at every point where he is endeavoring
efficiently and in good faith to serve the interests of
the Nation. But he can also rest assured that the
Republican Party will judge its duty by the standard
of loyalty to the country and will scornfully refuse
to adopt that extreme baseness of attitude, worthy
only of slaves, which shrieks that we must stand
by the Administration whether the Administration
is right or wrong. Moreover, the Republican Party
will certainly demand to have an accounting of some
of the enormous sums of money that have been ex
pended and will in due time doubtless demand to
know what explanation there is of the Administra
tion's persistence in hidden and secret diplomacy in
so many important matters. Every question will be
approached from the standpoint of a generous desire,
without any higgling or dealing on small points, to do
whatever the Administration demands that is proper
and to give it a full chance to declare, and perhaps
develop, its policy; but the Republican Congress
will understand how to show that it is not a rubber-
stamp body, but an integral and self-respecting part

THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 269

of the American governmental system, wholly and
solely responsible to the American people.

THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS AND THE

ENSLAVEMENT OF MANKIND

NOVEMBER 22, 1918

THE surest way to kill a great cause is to reduce it to
a hard-and-fast formula and insist upon the applica
tion of the formula without regard to actual existing
conditions.

It is announced in the press that the President is
going to the Peace Conference especially to insist,
among other things, on that one of his fourteen
points dealing with the so-called " freedom of the
seas." The President's position in the matter is, of
course, eagerly championed by Germany, as it has
been Germany's special position throughout the
war. It is, of course, eagerly championed by the
New York World, the Hearst papers, and all the
rubber-stamp gentry. It is antagonized by England
and France and by every anti-German in America
who understands the situation.

It is utterly impossible, in view of the immense
rapidity of the change in modern war conditions, to
formulate abstract policies about such matters as
contraband and blockades. These policies must
be actually tested in order to see how they work.
Both England and the United States have reversed
themselves in this matter on several different occa-

270 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

sions. This is interesting as a matter of history, but
from no other standpoint. If we are honorable and
intelligent we will follow the course in this matter
which, under existing conditions at this time, seems
most likely to work justice in the immediate future.

Germany's position was that England had no
right to blockade her so as to cut off her supplies
from the outside world. President Wilson at the
time accepted this view and talked a good deal about
the freedom of the seas. Meanwhile Germany,
through her submarines, began an unprecedented
course of wholesale murder on the seas. President
Wilson protested against this in language much more
apologetic and tender than he had used in protesting
against Great Britain blockading Germany in what
was essentially the same manner in which we block
aded the South during the Civil War. He put the
dollar above the man and incidentally above the
women and the children. He protested more vigor
ously upon the interference with American goods
than against the taking of American lives.

Then we finally went to war with Germany our
selves. We instantly adopted toward Germany and
toward neutrals like Holland exactly the position
which President Wilson had been denouncing Eng
land for adopting toward Germany and toward us.
Our action in this case was quite right, whereas our
protest against England's action had been entirely
wrong.

President Wilson now proposes to accept the Ger
man view and provide a system which, if it had been

THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 271

in existence in 1914, would have meant the inev
itable and rapid triumph of Germany.

If this particular one of the proposed fourteen
points had been in treaty form and had been lived
up to in 1914, Germany would have had free access
to the outside world. England's fleet would not have
enabled her to bring economic pressure to bear upon
Germany and doubtless Germany would have won
an overwhelming victory within a couple of years.
Therefore Mr. Wilson's proposal is that now, when
no human being can foretell whether Germany will
feel chastened and morally changed, we shall take
steps which will mean that if the war has to be fought
over again, Germany's triumph will have been se
cured in advance so far as we are able to secure it.
All such conditions, all merely academic questions as
to the attitude of America or of England before
the outbreak of the Great War, are insignificant.
Whatever our views prior to the Great War, we are
fools, indeed, if we have not learned the lessons
these last four and a half terrible years have taught.
The freedom of the seas in the sense used by Ger
many and Mr. Wilson would have meant the en
slavement of mankind to Germany. It would have
meant that this country would at this time either
be lying prostrate under the feet of German invaders
or be purchasing peace by ransoms heavier than
were paid by Belgium. No patriotic American has
the right to stand quiet and see the President of the
country, without any warrant from the country, try
to bring upon us such outrageous potentiality and

272 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

disaster as would be implied in the general interna
tional adoption of the so-called " freedom of the
seas." Such freedom of the seas means the enslave
ment of mankind.

PRESIDENT WILSON AND THE
PEACE CONFERENCE

NOVEMBER 26, 1918

No public end of any kind will be served by Presi
dent Wilson's going with Mr. Creel, Mr. House, and
his other personal friends to the Peace Conference.
Inasmuch as the circumstances of his going are so
extraordinary, and as there is some possibility of
mischief to this country as a result, there are certain
facts which should be set forth so clearly that there
can be no possibility of misunderstanding either by
our own people, by our allies, or by our beaten ene
mies, or by Mr. Wilson himself.

Ten days before election Mr. Wilson issued an
appeal to the American people in which he frankly
abandoned the position of President of the whole
people; assumed the position, not merely of party
leader, but of party dictator, and appealed to the
voters as such. Most of Mr. Wilson's utterances on
public questions have been susceptible to at least two
conflicting interpretations. But on this question he
made the issue absolutely clear. He asked that the
people return a Democratic majority to both the
Senate and the House of Representatives. He stated

WILSON AND THE PEACE CONFERENCE 273

that the Republican leaders were pro-war, but that
they were anti-Administration. His appeal was not
merely against any Republican being elected, but
against any Democrat who wished to retain his con
science in his own keeping. He declared himself
explicitly against the pro-war Republicans. He de
clared explicitly for all pro-Administration Demo
crats, without any reference as to whether they were
pro-war or anti-war. He said that if the people
approved of his leadership and wished him to con
tinue to be their " unembarrassed spokesman in
affairs at home and abroad, they must return a
Democratic majority to both the Senate and the
House of Representatives." He explicitly stated
that on the other side of the water the return of a
Republican majority to either House of Congress
would be interpreted as a repudiation of his leader
ship, and informed his fellow countrymen that to
elect a Democratic majority in Congress was the
only way to sustain him, Mr. Wilson.

The issue was perfectly, clearly drawn. The
Republican Party was pro-war and anti-Administra
tion, the Democratic Party was officially pro-Ad
ministration without any mind or conscience of its
own and pro-war or anti-war according to the way
in which Mr. Wilson changed his mind overnight or
between dawn and sunset. The Americans refused to
sustain Mr. Wilson. They elected a heavily Repub
lican House and to the surprise of every one carried a
majority in the Senate. On Mr. Wilson's own say-so
they repudiated his leadership. In no other free

274 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

country in the world to-day would Mr. Wilson be in
office. He would simply be a private citizen like the
rest of us.

Under these circumstances our allies and our
enemies, and Mr. Wilson himself, should all under
stand that Mr. Wilson has no authority whatever to
speak for the American people at this time. His
leadership has just been emphatically repudiated by
them. The newly elected Congress comes far nearer
than Mr. Wilson to having a right to speak the pur
poses of the American people at this moment. Mr.
Wilson and his fourteen points and his four supple
mentary points and his five complementary points
and all his utterances every which way have ceased
to have any shadow of right to be accepted as ex
pressive of the will of the American people. He is
President of the United States, he is part of the
treaty-making power, but he is only part. If he acts
in good faith to the American people, he will not
claim on the other side of the water any representa
tive capacity in himself to speak for the American
people. He will say frankly that his personal leader
ship has been repudiated and that he now has merely
the divided official leadership which he shares with
the Senate. If he will in good faith act in this way
all good citizens in good faith will support him,
just as they will support the Senate under similar
circumstances.

But there is n't the slightest indication that he
intends so to act. The most striking manifestation
of his purpose is that he sent over Mr. Creel and

WILSON AND THE PEACE CONFERENCE 275

sixteen of his employees who are officially announced
as " the United States official press mission to the
Peace Conference," and, with more self-satisfaction,
the committee announces, " to interpret the work of
the Peace Conference by keeping up world-wide
propaganda to disseminate American accomplish
ments and American ideals." At the same time Mr.
Burleson seized the cables after the war is over and
when there can be no possible object except to con
trol the news in the interest of President Wilson as
Mr. Burleson and Mr. Creel see that interest. The
action of the Creel " official press " would really
seem more like an excessively bad joke if it were n't
so serious. But during the war the Administration,
often incompetent to the verge of impudence in
dealing with war problems and with the Hun within
our gates, showed itself a past-master in bullying,
browbeating, deceiving, and puzzling our own
people. It is utterly impossible that the Creel " offi
cial press " and the Burleson-owned cables can have
any other real purpose than to make the news sent
out from the Peace Conference, both to ourselves,
our allies, and our enemies, what they desire to have
told from their own standpoint and nothing more.
This is a very grave offense against our own
people, but it may be a worse offense against both
our allies and ourselves. America played in the clos
ing months of the war a gallant part, but not in any
way the leading part, and she played this part only
by acting in strictest agreement with our allies and
under the joint high command. She should take

276 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

precisely the same attitude at the Peace Conference.
We have lost in this war about two hundred and
thirty-six thousand men killed and wounded. Eng
land and France have lost about seven million. Italy
and Belgium and the other Allies have doubtless lost
three million more. Of the terrible sacrifice which
has enabled the Allies to win the victory, America
has contributed just about two per cent. At the
end, I personally believe that our intervention was
decisive because the combatants were so equally
matched and were so weakened by the terrible strain
that our money and our enthusiasm and the million
fighting men whom we got to the front, even al
though armed substantially with nothing but French
field cannon, tanks, machine guns, and airplanes,
was decisive in the scale. But we could render this
decisive aid only because for four years the Allies, in
keeping Germany from conquering their own coun
tries, had incidentally kept her from conquering
ours.

It is our business to act with our allies and to show
an undivided front with them against any move of
our late enemies. I am no Utopian. I understand
entirely that there can be shifting alliances, I under
stand entirely that twenty years hence or thirty
years hence we don't know what combination we
may have to face, and for this reason I wish to see
us preparing our own strength in advance and trust
to nothing but our own strength for our own self-
defense as our permanent policy. But in the present
war we have won only by standing shoulder to

THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 277

shoulder with our allies and presenting an undivided
front to the enemy. It is our business to show
the same loyalty and good faith at the Peace Con
ference. Let it be clearly understood that the Ameri
can people absolutely stand behind France, England,
Italy, Belgium, and the other Allies at the Peace
Conference, just as she has stood with them during
the last eighteen months of war. Let every differ
ence of opinion be settled among the Allies them
selves and then let them impose their common will
on the nations responsible for the hideous disaster
which has almost wrecked mankind.

THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE

DECEMBER 2, 1918

EX-AMBASSADOR HARRY WHITE is a capital ap
pointee for the Peace Commission. He is not a
Republican, but an independent in politics who has
worked as closely with Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Olney
as with Mr. McKinley and Mr. Root.

It is a good thing to have him on in view of the
exceedingly loose talk about the League of Nations
or League to Enforce Peace. Fortunately Mr. Taft
has set forth the proposal for such a league under
existing conditions with such wisdom in refusing to
let adherence to the principle be clouded by insist
ence upon improper or unimportant methods of en
forcement that we can speak of the League as a
practical matter. I think that most of our people are

278 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

in favor of the establishment of the principle of such
a league under common-sense conditions which will
not attempt too much and thereby expose the move
ment to the absolute certainty of ridicule and failure.
There must be an honest effort to eliminate some of
the causes that may produce future wars and to
minimize the area of such wars.

Mr. Taft explicitly admits and insists that the
League is to be a supplement to, and in no sense a
substitute for, the duty of our Nation to prepare its
own strength for its own defense. He also explicitly
provides that, among the various peoples who would
not be admitted to the League on an equality with
the others, there shall be different spheres of interest
assumed by the different powers who have entered
into the League. For example, the affairs of hither
Asia, the Balkan Peninsula, and of North Africa
are of prime concern to the powers of Europe, and
the United States should be under no covenant to
go to war about matters in which its people have no
concern and probably no intelligent interest. On
the other hand, the Monroe Doctrine — at least for
all America between the equator and the southern
boundary of the United States — is a vital point of
American policy, and must in no shape or way be
interfered with. We do not interfere with existing
conditions, but aside from these no European or
Asiatic power is to have any say-so in the future
of Mexico, Central America, and the lands whose
coasts are washed by the Caribbean Sea. The
Panama Canal must not be internationalized. It is

THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 279

our canal; we built it; we fortified it, and we will
protect it, and we will not permit our enemies to
use it in war. In time of peace all nations shall use
it alike, but in time of war our interest at once be
comes dominant.

Most wisely Mr. Taft's plan reserves for each
nation certain matters of such vital national interest
that they cannot be put before any international
tribunal. This country must settle its own tariff and
industrial policies, and the question of admitting
immigrants to work or to citizenship, and all similar
matters, the exercise of which was claimed as a right
when in 1776 we became an independent Nation.
We will not surrender our independence to a league
of nations any more than to a single nation. More
over, no international court must be entrusted with
the decision of what is and what is not justiciable.

In the articles of agreement the non- justiciable
matters should be as sharply defined as possible,
and until some better plan can be devised, the Na
tion itself must reserve to itself the right, as each
case arises, to say what these matters are.

But let us steadily remember that before dealing
with schemes such as the League of Nations, which
are necessarily more or less visionary, we must join
in good faith with our allies in securing practical
right and justice at the Peace Conference. We
should treat as an enemy to this country every man
who at this time seeks directly or indirectly to stir up
dissension between us and England or France, or any
other of our allies. Side by side we have fought

280 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

against the hideous twin terrors of Bolshevism and
Kaiserism and we must stand undivided at the
Peace Conference. What the distant future may
hold no man can say, and this is the very reason why
I insist that America must prepare its own strength
for its own defense. But our duty at the moment is
clear. We have fought the war through beside the
Allies and we must stand with them with hearty
loyalty throughout the peace negotiations. There
must be no division in the face of our enemies. At
the very close of the war we played an honorable
and probably decisive part, but we were enabled to
do so only because for the four preceding years Eng
land and France and their associates in defending
their own rights had also saved us from destruction.
Our sacrifice is infinitesimal compared to theirs. We
have had a quarter of a million men killed and
wounded; England has had over three million,
France nearly four million, and the other Allies
during their time of warfare against the common foe
suffered in proportion. Our loss has been no more
than one or two per cent of the entire loss suffered by
the Allied armies and navies.

The immediate cause of bringing the war to an end
was the forcing of unconditional surrender upon
Bulgaria and Turkey, with whom we had shamefully
refused to go to war at all. The English navy pro
tected us exactly as it protected Britain. Under such
circumstances it behooves us to remember that
while we at the very end did our duty, yet that our
comrades in arms for over four years performed in-

MEN WHOSE LOT HAS BEEN HARDEST 281

calculable feats and suffered incalculable losses and
won the right of gratitude of all mankind. The
American envoys must not sit at the peace table
as umpires between the Allies and the conquered
Central Powers, but as loyal brothers of the Allies, as
loyal members of the league of free peoples, which
has brought about peace by overthrowing Turkey,
Bulgaria, and Austria, and beating Germany to her
knees.

THE MEN WHOSE LOT HAS BEEN
HARDEST

DECEMBER 8, 1918

THERE recently died of pneumonia in France Major
Willard Straight, of the American army. He was
above the draft age, he was a man of large and many
interests, he had a wife and three children. There
was every excuse for him not to have gone to the
front, but both he and his wife had in their souls that
touch of heroism which makes it impossible for
generous natures to see others pay with their bodies
and not to wish to do so themselves. The one regret
that Major Straight felt — and he felt it most
bitterly — was that he had not been able in spite of
all his efforts to get to the actual firing front. This
failure was really a cause of great anguish of soul
to him. In the same way I know of the four sons of
an ex-Cabinet officer, all of whom instantly went into
the army at the outbreak of the war. Two were

282 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

at the fighting front, one was in the navy, and the
other, because of the special excellence as an in
structor, was kept here, and the gallant young fellow
who left his wife and baby to enlist really feels as if
the refusal of the War Department to permit him to
go where he could be shot at had caused a blight in
his life. I know three other men who, because of
their excellence, were kept as instructors at one of
our camps, whose feelings of regret are so bitter that
they can hardly bear to look at their uniforms and
the sight of wounded soldiers causes them agonies of
thwarted longing.

All this is most natural, and just what we should
expect from high-minded, gallant fellows. But it is
entirely unwarranted. I utterly abhor the swivel-
chair slacker who got some safe job in order to avoid
doing his duty at the front. But for the hundreds of
thousands of young Americans in the ranks or with
commissions who did everything they could to get
in the firing lines, and who through no fault of
theirs failed, I have precisely the same feeling that I
have for the men who took part in the most danger
ous work. General Leonard Wood, in his recent
capital address, has taught the right lesson to these
men. He was dismissing to their homes the men
whom he had trained with his usual, extraordinary
capacity to fit them for work overseas, and he dwelt
to them upon the fact that the all-important point
was that they should remember that it was not the
position they achieved, but the eager readiness to do
duty in whatever position they were given that really

AMERICAN COMMON SENSE 283

counted. General Wood has himself been treated
with the most cruel injustice in this war, yet he
has rendered signal service in bringing before Con
gress our military needs, and, above all, in training
scores of thousands of our best fighting men. When
he was denied, from the very meanest motives, the
chance to fill a distinguished position, instead of
sulking he devoted all of his energy to doing the best
he could in the positions to which he was assigned.
In consequence he comes out of the war as one of
those who most materially helped to win it. What is
true of him in a big place is true of every other
soldier, whether in a big or little place. The hardest
task was for the men who were denied the chance of
glory, and if they did this hard task well and served
faithfully wherever they were assigned, they have
exactly the same right for pride in their participa
tion in the Great War as any of the gallant fellows
who have come back maimed or crippled from the
front. All alike have made the rest of us forever their
debtors, and to all alike we pay the same meed of
loyal admiration and respect.

THE BRITISH NAVY, THE FRENCH

ARMY, AND AMERICAN

COMMON SENSE

DECEMBER 17, 1918

THE first essential in an alliance is loyalty. The
first effort of an enemy to an alliance is to produce

284 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

disloyalty to one another among the Allies. To any
man who knows anything of history these facts are
of bromidic triteness. But the Administration, as
usual, stands in urgent need of learning the elements
of fair play and common sense.

It was announced from the peace ship that Presi
dent Wilson was going to work for the reduction of
naval armaments and for a form of naval agreement
which, if it had existed four years ago, would have
meant Germany's victory and the subjugation of not
only Germany's foes, but of all neutrals like our
selves. At the same time over here the representa
tives of the Administration are demanding a navy
bigger than that of Great Britain. The only possible
interpretation of these facts is that the Administra
tion proposes to threaten Great Britain with having
to get in a neck-and-neck competition with America
to build the greatest navy in the world, and to do
this as a bluff so as to make for Great Britain's ad
herence to Mr. Wilson's exceedingly nebulous ideas.

Under these conditions the American people
should, with common sense, look at what their own
needs are and at what the needs of their allies are.
Sooner or later any programme will have to be tested
by its results, and even if the United States started
to emulate Great Britain's navy, the enthusiasm to
do so would vanish when it appeared that there was
no earthly interest of ours to be served by the action.

In winning the present war very many instru
mentalities have been necessary. On the whole the
four most important in their order have been: (i)

AMERICAN COMMON SENSE 285

the French army; (2) the British navy; (3) the
British army; (4) the Italian army. Our own gallant
army and navy did exceedingly well, but came in so
late that the part they played, taking the four and a
half years as a whole, does not entitle them to rank
with the instrumentalities given above.

Great Britain is an island, separated from the huge
military commonwealths of Europe by very narrow
seas, and separated from her own greatest colonies
by all the greatest oceans. To her, supremacy in the
navy is a matter of life and death. America ought
to have a first-class navy, but if she did not have
a ship she might yet secure herself from any inva
sion. But Great Britain's empire would not last one
week, and she could not make herself safe at home
one week if her navy lost its supremacy. Inciden
tally to saving herself, the British navy has rendered
incalculable service to us during the last four and
one-half years, and for the last thirty years has been
a shield to the United States. Great Britain is not a
military power in the sense that any of the nations
of continental Europe, or indeed of Asia, are military
powers. She had almost as much difficulty in devel
oping her army in this war as we had in developing
our army. Her army is no more of a threat to other
peoples than ours is. Therefore, we Americans find
ourselves, as regards the British navy, in this posi
tion, that it is of vital consequence to Great Britain
to have the greatest navy in the world; it is emphat
ically not of any consequence to us to have as big a
navy as Great Britain, for we are not in the slightest

286 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

danger from Great Britain, and under all ordinary
circumstances the British navy can be counted upon
as a help to the United States and never as a menace.
Under such circumstances to set ourselves to work
to build a navy in rivalry to Great Britain's, and
above all to do this as a political bluff, is worse than
silly.

Our own navy should be ample to protect our own
coasts and to maintain the Monroe Doctrine. There
are in Europe and Asia several great military com
monwealths, each one of which will in all probabil
ity always possess a far more formidable army than
ours, even though, as I earnestly hope, we adopt
some development of universal military training on
the lines of the Swiss system. Therefore, it is of the
highest consequence that our navy should be second
to that of Great Britain.

The analogy with the case of the French army is
complete. If the French army had not been able to
hold the German army and be the chief factor in
the German military overthrow, the British navy
could not have averted Germany's complete victory.
Great Britain is separated by the narrow seas from
the military powers of continental Europe. We are
separated from them by the width of the ocean.
Under the circumstances, it is sheer impertinence for
either American or English statesmen to tell France,
or, for that matter Italy, what ought to be done in
abolishing armaments or abandoning universal serv
ice or anything of the kind. The interest of France
and Italy in the matter is vital. The interest of

STRAIGHTFORWARD SPEAKING 287

England and America is partly secondary. If we
have well-thought-out arguments to put before the
French, put them before them, but treat France as
having the vital interest in the matter, and therefore
the final say-so as far as we are concerned. And
when France has determined what the needs of the
future demand, so far as her military preparedness
is concerned, and when Italy has made a similar de
termination, and our other allies likewise, back them
up. It is not the business of America to tell Great
Britain what she should do with her navy. It is not
the business of either America or England to tell
France what she should do with her army. The
plain American common sense of the situation is that
we should recognize our immense debt to the British
navy and the French army, and stand by Britain in
what she decides her vital needs demand so far as
her navy is concerned, and stand by France in the
position she takes as to what the situation demands
so far as her army is concerned.

LET US HAVE STRAIGHTFORWARD

SPEAKING
DECEMBER 24, 1918

SENATOR LODGE in his admirable speech has given
the reasons why at least five of the famous fourteen
points should not be considered in the peace nego
tiations proper. But the special merit of Senator
Lodge's statement lies in the fact that it is straight-

288 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

forward and clear. There is no need of a key to find
out what he means. The men who represent, or as
sume to represent, the United States at the Peace
Conference, should be equally clear with our allies
and our enemies and also with the American people.
Above all things we need some straightforward
statement as to just what is proposed and as to just
why it is proposed.

Take, for example, the very extraordinary conflict
between that one of the fourteen points in which the
Administration has demanded practically complete
disarmament and the action of the Administration
at the same moment demanding that we shall build
the biggest navy in the world. Either one course or
the other must necessarily be improper. In such a
matter we especially need a straightforward state
ment of reasons and principles.

The worst thing we could do would be to build a
spite navy, a navy built not to meet our own needs,
but to spite some one else. I am speaking purely as
an American. No man in this country who is both
intelligent or informed has the slightest fear that
Great Britain will ever invade us or try to go to war
with us. The British navy is not in the slightest
degree a menace to us. I can go a little further than
this. There is in Great Britain a large pacifist and
defeatist party which behaves exactly like our own
pacifists, pro-Germans, Germanized Socialists, de
featists, and Bolsheviki. If this party had its way
and Great Britain abandoned its fleet, I should feel,
so far from the United States being freed from the

A SQUARE DEAL 289

necessity of building up a fleet, that it behooved us to
build a much stronger one than is at present neces
sary. Our need is not as great as that of the vast
scattered British Empire, for our domains are pretty
much in a ring fence. We ought not to undertake the
task of policing Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa.
Neither ought we to permit any interference with
the Monroe Doctrine or any attempt by Europe or
Asia to police America. Mexico is our Balkan Pen
insula. Some day we will have to deal with it. All
the coasts and islands which in any way approach
the Panama Canal must be dealt with by this Na
tion, and by this Nation alone, in accordance with
the Monroe Doctrine. With this object in view our
navy should be second to that of Great Britain and
superior to that of any other power — and if Great
Britain chooses to abolish its navy it would mean
that we ought to build a larger navy than is now
necessary.

A SQUARE DEAL FOR THE MEN
AT THE FRONT

DECEMBER 25, 1918

WE should show our respect for the men at the front
by more than mere adulation. They are the Ameri
cans who have done most and suffered most for this
country. It was announced in the press that in many
cases they and the families they have left behind
have not for months received their full pay. This is

290 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

an outrage. All civil officials are paid. The Secre
tary of War is paid, and he ought not to touch a
dollar of his salary and no high official should touch
a dollar of his salary until the enlisted men and
junior officers are paid every cent that is owing to
them, and this payment should be prompt. There is
literally no excuse for even so much as three days'
delay in the payment.

Moreover, these men, at great cost to themselves
in paying everything including, in fifty or sixty
thousand cases, their lives, have gone to the front at
a wage from one half to one fifth as great as that
their companions who stayed behind have received
during the same period. They enlisted to do a spe
cific job. They made the sacrifice in order to do that
job. We on our side should see that just as soon as
the job is done the men are taken home, allowed to
leave the army, and begin earning their livelihood
and take care of the wives and children that the
married ones among them have left behind.

Recently in the public press there have appeared
various artless and chatty statements from the
State, War/ and Navy departments that our men
might be kept in Europe to do general police work
and might not be brought back here until the
summer of 1920. There are three types of soldiers on
the other side. There are the Regular Army men,
who have entered the Regular Army as a profession,
and to whom it is a matter of indifference whether
they stay in Europe, come back here, go to the
Philippines, or do anything else. That is a small

A SQUARE DEAL 291

proportion of our force on the other side. The bulk
are divided between volunteers, who enlisted in the
National Guard or sometimes in the regular regi
ments to fight this war through, and the drafted men
who were put into the army under a law designed to
meet this war and this war only. Not one in ten of
the volunteers would have dreamed of volunteering
to do police work in European squabbles. Not ten
Congressmen would have voted for the Draft Law
if it was to force selective men to do police duty after
the war was over. All these men went in to fight this
war through to a finish and then to come home. It
is not a square deal to follow any other course as
regards them. The minute that peace comes every
American soldier on the other side should be brought
home as speedily as possible save, of course, the
regulars who make the Regular Army their life pro
fession, and any other man who chose to volunteer to
go over, or who can with entire propriety be used for
gathering up the loose ends. The American fighting
man at the front has given this country a square deal
during the war. Now let the country give him a
square deal by letting him get out of the army and go
to his home as soon as the war is finished. The Red
Cross has done wonderful work in taking care of the
dependents of these men pending settlement by the
Government, but the Government should not be
content to rely on any outside organization to make
up its own shortcomings.

292 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS1
JANUARY 13, 1919

IT is, of course, a serious misfortune that our people
are not getting a clear idea of what is happening on
the other side. For the moment the point as to
which we are foggy is the League of Nations. We all
of us earnestly desire such a league, only we wish to
be sure that it will help and not hinder the cause of
world peace and justice. There is not a young man
in this country who has fought, or an old man who
has seen those dear to him fight, who does not wish
to minimize the chance of future war. But there is
not a man of sense who does not know that in any
such movement if too much is attempted the result
is either failure or worse than failure.

1 This article on " The League of Nations " is the last contribution
that Colonel Roosevelt prepared for The Star. It was dictated at his
home in Oyster Bay, January 3, the Friday before his death. His
secretary expected to take the typed copy to him for correction Mon
day. Instead she was called on the telephone early Monday morning
and told of his death. A delay of several days naturally ensued, before
the editorial reached the office of The Star.

In view of the immense moment of the issues before the Peace
Conference, The Star had asked Colonel Roosevelt to give his country
men the benefit of his discussion of the possibilities of a League of
Nations as a preventive of war. He consented, although, as he wrote,
he expected to follow this editorial with one " on what I regard as
infinitely more important, namely, our business to prepare for our
own self-defense." That article, however, was never written.

This article, then, his final contribution to The Star, represents his
matured judgment based on protracted discussion and correspondence.
It is of peculiar importance as the last message of a man who, above
every other American of his generation, combined high patriotism,
practical sense, and a positive genius for international relations.

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 293

The trouble with Mr. Wilson's utterances, so far
as they are reported, and the utterances of ac
quiescence in them by European statesmen, is that
they are still absolutely in the stage of rhetoric
precisely like the " fourteen points." Some of the
fourteen points will probably have to be construed
as having a mischievous significance, a smaller
number might be construed as being harmless, and
one or two even as beneficial, but nobody knows
what Mr. Wilson really means by them, and so all
talk of adopting them as basis for a peace or a league
is nonsense and, if the talker is intelligent, it is in
sincere nonsense to boot. So Mr. Wilson's recent
utterances give us absolutely no clue as to whether
he really intends that at this moment we shall admit
Germany, Russia, — with which, incidentally, we
are still waging war, — Turkey, China, and Mexico
into the League on full equality with ourselves. Mr.
Taft has recently defined the purposes of the League
and the limitations under which it would act, in a
way that enables most of us to say we very heartily
agree in principle with his theory and can, without
doubt, come to an agreement on specific details.

Would it not be well to begin with the League
which we actually have in existence, the League of the
Allies who have fought through this great war? Let
us at the peace table see that real justice is done
as among these Allies, and that while the sternest
reparation is demanded from our foes for such
horrors as those committed in Belgium, Northern
France, Armenia, and the sinking of the Lusitania,

294 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR

nothing should be done in the spirit of mere venge
ance. Then let us agree to extend the privileges of
the League, as rapidly as their conduct warrants it,
to other nations, doubtless discriminating between
those who would have a guiding part in the League
and the weak nations who would be entitled to the
privileges of membership, but who would not be
entitled to a guiding voice in the councils. Let each
nation reserve to itself and for its own decision, and
let it clearly set forth questions which are non-
justiciable.'. 'Let nothing be done that will interfere
with our preparing for our own defense by introduc
ing a system of universal obligatory military training
modeled on the Swiss plan.

Finally make it perfectly clear that we do not
intend to take a position of international Meddle
some Matty. The American people do not wish to
go into an overseas war unless for a very great cause
and where the issue is absolutely plain. Therefore,
we do not wish to undertake the responsibility of
sending our gallant young men to die in obscure
fights in the Balkans or in Central Europe, or in a
war we do not approve of. Moreover, the American
people do not intend to give up the Monroe Doc
trine. Let civilized Europe and Asia introduce some
kind of police system in the weak and disorderly
countries at their thresholds. But let the United
States treat Mexico as our Balkan Peninsula and
refuse to allow European or Asiatic powers to inter
fere on this continent in any way that implies per
manent or semi-permanent possession. Every one of

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 295

our allies will with delight grant this request if
President Wilson chooses to make it, and it will be a
great misfortune if it is not made.

I believe that such an effort made moderately and
sanely, but sincerely and with utter scorn for words
that are not made good by deeds, will be productive
of real and lasting international good.

THE END

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